


not beyond repair

by WonderstruckSwan



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: F/M, and maybe sexual abuse, same rating as the musical, so mentions of abuse and neglect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 78,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderstruckSwan/pseuds/WonderstruckSwan
Summary: What if JD and Veronica did meet before he became convinced that life is war? What if they actually got to have a life together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay first things first; I am not trying to excuse JD's actions in canon. He was a bad person in the musical. This is not me trying to excuse his actions, just wondering how things would have turned out if he wasn't bad or had gotten help.  
> Also: I am not a psychologist and I am not going to pretend that I know how the human brain works, especially one as complex as canon!JD's. That said, I did do some research into sociopathy/anti social behaviour disorder for this fic, so....  
> Also this fic is 99% pure wish fulfilment.  
> Also also I will be honest; this fic is only really half-planned so tags may change.

September first, 1984. First day of seventh grade.

Veronica counts herself as one of the luckiest people in the world for the simple fact that her dad can drive her to school and she doesn’t have to take the bus. She looks at the sea of students pouring out from the small buses and she wonders how they all fit in there. Boys jump over and around one another while girls hurry through the school gates in bundles of three or four, giggling hysterically while they share gossip from the summer break.

While she watches the mass of kids making their way inside, all while sitting safely on the wall, she notices Heather Mac, Heather Chandler and Heather Duke strolling past, arms linked, Chandler laughing at something MacNamara says and Duke trying to copy her. She’s never been close to them; despite being in the same class since kindergarten. In recent years, she’s not sure if she’s said more than five sentences to all three of them combined. Still, she gives them a wave, and while Duke and Chandler regard her with a nod, MacNamara waves back.

“Veronica!” an unmistakable voice greets. Veronica turns her head away from the rest of the student body and sees Martha, her long-time best friend, standing in front of her, her cheeks rosy and smile wide and hair in a high ponytail.

“Hey Martha,” she replies, jumping off the wall and letting Martha take her by the hand.

“Oh my gosh I have so much to catch you up on!” Martha tells her.

“I saw you last week!”

“I know, but thing is my sister came back for the weekend and she-”

While Martha continues babbling, she and Veronica exchange smiles and waves and high-fives with passing classmates. They pass Ram and see he got braces over the summer. Veronica still can’t see the appeal but Martha still blushes when he reaches over to high-five them only to swipe his hand away with a too-loud laugh.

They take their seats, third row from the front as usual. Another thing Veronica has to be thankful for is that the teachers haven’t bothered with alphabetical seating since second grade. Then Martha could probably get stuck next to Heather Duke and she’d end up all the way at the back. She turns and takes a look at where she would be sitting, most likely second from the back in a nice little spot where the sun can hit her directly in the face, and her eyes land on possibly the most amazing event ever to happen in Sherwood, Ohio, and certainly in their school; a new kid. His dark hair falls over his face and and he wears a dark leather jacket and faded t-shirt. He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, just keeps his eyes trained on the book on his desk, tapping out some rhythm with his chewed nails.

“Do we have a new kid?” Veronica asks as she takes her seat next to Martha. Martha turns around and looks in Veronica’s direction.

“I guess,” she replies. She cocks her head to the side while looking at him. “That’s weird. We never have new kids.” Veronica hums in agreement. “He’s kind of cute.”

“Is he?” Veronica asks, leaning over in her seat and lowering her voice. Her mom likes to joke that Martha grew up before Veronica; Martha has fallen down the rabbit hole of boys while for Veronica, they barely register with her. She could listen to Martha go on about cute boys in their grade (mostly Ram if she’s being honest) but so far, not one boy has managed to make Veronica’s head turn.

Until the new kid’s eyes flick up from his book and catch hers and he smiles slightly and she feels something flutter in her chest.

No, she tells herself. She doesn’t like boys and certainly not ones who might have smiled at her from across the room.

Ms Murphy strolls into the room with far too much energy than she should have had given both her age and the hour of day and commands everyone’s attention. Ms Murphy may have a smile on her face but the kids know better than to mess with her. Her reputation precedes her, older siblings often use scary stories about her to scare kids going into seventh grade.

“Welcome back, class,” she announces. “I hope you’re all ready for another year.” She is responded to with begrudging murmurs and half-formed “yes”es, not to mention Kurt and Ram’s snickering and Heather Chandler’s perfectly obvious eye roll. She straightens her back and adjusts her thick-rimmed glasses. “Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have a new student in our class this year.”

Veronica, along with her entire class, turns around and sees the new kid shrink into his jacket. He manages against all odds to avoid the twenty six pairs of eyes on him and keeps a scowl on his face.

“Why don’t you stand up and tell the class a bit about yourself?” Ms Murphy asks and Veronica feels her heart go out to him. She can’t think of anything more mortifying than having to stand up and say “your name and a fun fact about yourself”.

“I’m okay thanks,” he replies with a chuckle.

That sends the whole class off. Veronica claps her hands over her mouth as her sides shake with laughter. Martha is red in the face, her mouth dropped open as she looks from him to Ms Murphy. Around them, some kids sit in slack-jawed awe, some laugh, and even a few applaud. Kurt and Ram holler from their seats. Even the Heathers come out of their little bubble to react, Chandler covering her laugh with her hand while Duke’s jaw is on the floor and MacNamara is on the edge of her seat waiting for the fallout.

Ms Murphy rolls her lips into a thin line. New Kid is already on her radar. He rolls his eyes and stands, hands up to admit defeat, but the smirk on his face shows clear as day she’s not won anything of note. Veronica wonders briefly who will crack first; New Kid or Murphy.

“My name’s Jason Dean,” he introduces. “Or JD, if you want. I moved here from Boston and…” He drums his fingers on the book on his desk, puffing out his cheeks as he blows air out of his mouth. “I like books. And I look forward to learning as much as I can with you over the next six weeks until I leave you all.” Apparently, he’s nothing if not dramatic, since he gives a small bow before sitting back in his chair and saluting Ms Murphy.

“Well, we’re glad to have you in our class, Jason,” she says stiffly. As she drones on with morning announcements and another run about the code of conduct (which has a special emphasis on respect for teachers this time around), Veronica sneaks another glance over her shoulder at Jason, or JD. He’s leaning on the desk, still reading his book, like the rest of the classroom isn’t even there.

He looks up slightly when Ms Murphy moves on to the portion of her speech about paying attention and brandishes a ruler like she wants to throw it at his head. He laughs to himself and looks over just enough to look at her. She gives him a smile, trying to give him a warm welcome. He smiles back and she turns quickly before he can see the pink spread across her cheeks.

Okay. Maybe she might like one boy.

Amid the unruly jungle of the cafeteria, Veronica and Martha manage to find a semi-quiet table near a corner. They, along with Betty Finn, who tags along with them, drop their trays on the table, swing their legs over the seats and begin catching each other up on classes they didn’t have together and recapping what classes they did share.

“Math this year looks awful,” Veronica complains. “I’m never going to get any of it.”

“Sure you will,” Betty says with a bright smile. Veronica and Martha share a glance across the table. Betty is eternally optimistic about this kind of stuff, the cheery, all-American ‘you can achieve anything’ kind of mindset. While it’s cute on Betty, Veronica isn’t so sure about it. “And anyway, the books we get to read in English this year seem super cool.”

“That new kid JD is in our English class,” Martha adds, leaning over her lunch like this was some big secret. “He’s even worse in class than he is in homeroom.”

“What do you mean?” Veronica asked, pretending to be more interested in her sandwich. She hadn’t even thought about JD since that morning, the buzz of the first day of school overwhelming her. And yet here she is now, talking about him and putting the image of his smile out of her mind.

“He’s like… really smart,” Martha answers. “But he kind of acts like he doesn’t care. But then Miss Parker asked him a question and he just rattled off this like… SAT worthy answer.”

“I mean, he would be. He’s been reading that book all day,” Betty reminds them. “He even had it on his lap during class.”

When another lunch tray is put down, right at the end of their table, a phrase her mom likes to use comes to Veronica’s mind. Speak of the Devil, he appears.

JD has seated himself at the far end of their table, on Veronica’s side. Just six seats away from her. He picks absent-mindedly at the lunch on his tray, continuing reading, his book flat on the table, his head propped up on his fist, his elbow resting on the table while he uses his other hand to turn the page.

When she looks back at Martha and Betty, they look nervously at one another and then to Veronica, like some wild animal has sat at their table. After a bit, Martha shrugs and smiles weakly. She pushes her ponytail off her shoulder and takes a deep breath, almost like she is giving herself a small pep-talk.

“We might as well make him feel welcome,” she says before turning her body so she faces JD. She looks to Veronica and Betty for encouragement. Betty doesn’t do anything but press her hands together and look warily in his direction, but Veronica nods. Martha breathes out sharply and puts on a broad smile.

Martha Dunnstock, the girl whose huge heart outweighs her nerves. No wonder Veronica loves her.

“Hi,” she says, just loud enough so he can hopefully hear. After a beat, nothing happens and Martha’s face begins to fall. Then he frowns, picking up on the lack on a response and looks up tentatively at the three expectant faces watching him. Well, two and Betty looking at her lunch tray.

“Greetings,” he replies, lazily saluting them with two fingers. Martha nods, still smiling, but Veronica can see her tense shoulders, her sleeves covering her joined together hands. Huge heart, not so huge confidence.

“You’re Jason, right?” she says. Martha shoots her a grateful look.

“Or JD, if you prefer,” he replies. Something about his tone of voice tells her that it’s very much what he prefers.

“I’m Veronica,” she introduces. “Veronica Sawyer.”

“Nice to meet you, Veronica Veronica Sawyer,” he says, making her laugh. He smiles back at her, easy and light. His eyes move to the seat beside him, but the doesn’t move.

“I’m Martha,” Martha adds. Her voice is quieter than usual, but JD still hears and gives her a nod.

“Betty Finn,” Betty says, her voice small. She her hands clasped in her lap and avoids eye contact with him. JD smiles at her too, but it’s tighter and his gaze moves back to Veronica and Martha.

“So what brings you to Sherwood?” Veronica asks, hoping to clear up the tension.

“My dad’s work,” he sighs. “Yeah, um… Wherever he goes I go.” He spread his hand on the cover of his book and drummed a beat out with his fingers, rolling his lips into a thin line.

“Boston sounds cool,” Martha says. “I’ve never been there.”

“It was, I guess,” he says. “Then good old Dad decided we needed to pack up and move out before I could try out for the soccer team.” He lets out a low chuckle, his smile barely reaching his eyes. Veronica shifts in her seat and looks to a nervous looking Martha and Betty.

“Are you trying out for soccer here?” she asks, fully aware of how ridiculous she sounds, but she’s almost desperate to keep this conversation going.

“Nah,” he answers. “I’ll be gone by the time practice starts up. Not really good for the team if one of them disappears, ya know?” He grimaces slightly and looks down, avoiding their eyes, while Veronica searches for the right words. What exactly can she say to that?

“Oh,” is what she ends up saying. He shrugs and leans back in his chair, pushing his hair away from his face. “So you’ve moved around a lot?”

“A bit,” he answers. “Before Boston was LA. And before LA was Chicago. Planning on getting a fridge magnet in every state I live in. The one day when I own a fridge I can put them all up.” He laughs to himself, the sound dark and flat and humourless. “Sorry, I just realised I forgot to get one before I left Boston. Guess I’ll have to circle back some time.”

“You lived in LA?” Betty asks, her eyes beginning to light up. “That’s so cool, I’ve always wanted to go to LA. I mean, I’ve only seen it on TV, but it looks awesome, beaches and celebrities and all that.”

“Don’t believe everything you see on TV,” he replies. “I did live near a beach but… You know, never got time to go down before we had to leave.” He picks at the foot on his tray and pops a fry into his mouth, shrugging. “Food was better in LA, though.”

Veronica laughs and opens her mouth to tell him that frankly, this is cafeteria food at its best, how they always make an effort at the beginning of the year, and what he should remember if he wants to get the good stuff, until two painfully familiar figures show up at the end of their table, matching jackets and haircuts, one brunet and one blond, and Martha’s cheeks turn pink. Ram and Kurt. Westerburg middle school’s resident Tweedledum and Tweedle-just-as-dum.

“Hey,” Ram says, smacking JD on the back of the head. He blinks but otherwise doesn’t react; he just keeps looking straight ahead.

“Ram, buzz off,” Veronica says. He looks at her like he wasn’t even aware she was sitting there and rolls his eyes.

“Hey, no need to be like that, Ronica,” Kurt says. “We’re just here welcoming our little Jackson Dean here to Sherwood, Ohio.”

“Jason,” he reminds them.

“What?”

“Jason Dean is my name, I said it only three and a half hours ago and somehow I doubt anything else went in your brain in that time.”

You could hear in a pin drop in that cafeteria. JD keeps staring straight ahead, but there’s a smirk on his face now. She should hope nothing else happens and Kurt and Ram’s brains work for the first time in twelve years and they walk away, but then again, a small part of her hopes for something else.

Ram’s eyes narrow, his shoulders tense and he leans on the table, far too close to JD’s face than she can imagine he likes. In one swoop, he knocks his book off the table. JD’s eyes follow it as it skids across the floor and slides to a halt in the middle of the cafeteria. He finally moves and looks up at them, his expression far too tense. His moth is set in a thin line and everything about his face looks like a carefully constructed mask that is far too easy to break.

“You’re very lucky I marked my page,” he whispers. He pushes himself up from the table and goes to pick it up, his sleeves hanging over his hands, his steps controlled and fast, pushing his way past people and keeping his eyes down, avoiding everyone looking at him. He picks it up slowly, brushing dirt off the cover and goes to sit back down, but Kurt and Ram decide to meet him in the middle.

Veronica can see what’s coming. They’re twice his size and obviously outnumber him, not to mention have been the star athletes of their class since second grade. He doesn’t stand a chance.

“That book good?” Ram asks.

“Yes. I’d let you borrow it when I’m finished, but it might be a little above your brain capacity for now.”

 _So long, JD, it was nice knowing you, I will always mourn the fun we could have had_ , Veronica thinks when Ram readies himself to take a swing at him. Kurt grabs him from behind and Veronica feels her gut twist at the injustice of it all. She should, and frankly wants to, march over there and give Kurt and Ram a piece of her mind but she feels rooted to the chair, trapped inside her own body.

But as it turns out, he doesn’t need her help.

He wrenches his arm free and smacks Ram across the face with his book. He stumbles back, clutching his cheek while JD looks at him with a mile-wide smile. He twists and gives Kurt the same treatment, causing him to let him go. When Ram takes a run at him JD lands a kick in a very painful place and whips around to kick Kurt in the shins. Ram continues lying in pain on the ground, biting his lip to keep himself from screaming, while JD decides to ditch the book and takes a swing at Kurt with his bare fists, all while the cafeteria waits with a collective held breath.

 Veronica should not be interested in this crap. She’s seen boys fighting before, out in the yard, mostly athletes kicking the snot out of each other for fun or kicking the snot out of each other over some stupid argument. It’s dumb, immature and messy. She should not be interested in this kind of stuff, she never has been.

But with this kid?

Well, damn.

He can punch real good. She kicks herself for underestimating him; she thought he’d be done for in two seconds, but he may well walk away the victor, especially with Ram currently immobile and Kurt having the seven hells beaten out of him. If he can take on them, she imagines he can take on anyone he wants to.

With everyone’s eyes fixed on Ram and Kurt getting their asses handed t them on a plate, Veronica reaches into her bag and gently lifts her diary out. She keeps her eyes on the scene in front of her; JD punching a stumbling Ram in the jaw, knocking him back onto the table behind him.

 _Dear diary_ she writes. _I know pretty much nothing about this new kid. Other than he likes reading and might not like moving around. But…._ She pauses and takes a look up at him. A teacher is storming across to them. In a few minutes, the fight will be broken up and all three of them will be dragged off to the principal’s office, and then the nurse’s office for two of them. He’s still going, landing a punch in Kurt’s gut. He doesn’t show any signs of stopping, either he’s crazy, or fearless. _But… I think I want to know him a bit more. I think he could fight for me. And I’d fight for him. Just if he fought for me first._

She looks back and sees one teacher dragging JD away from the fight by the arm. She yells something at him, but whatever it is, Veronica doesn’t catch it. She keeps looking at him, thinking the unthinkable; imagining him with her, standing in front of her, shielding her from the horrors of middle school, taking down the people she can’t.

All of which, of course, would have to happen after he gets dragged off and handed out however many detentions and lectures from the principal.

 _If he’s still alive_ she adds.

                                                                                                ******

She doesn’t see JD again after that. She sits in her geography class, trying to distract herself by focussing on the formation of rocks, which surprisingly doesn’t work. She silently calls herself stupid for thinking so much about some boy she barely knows, some boy who really should be considered trouble by pretty much all accounts. And yet…

The teacher excuses herself for a moment, getting a call from the office, instructing them to keep working while she’s gone.

Yeah, right.

“Dude, I saw that kid JD knock Ram out cold with one punch!” someone insists.

“Kurt started crying,” another girl says. “Like, real actual tears.”

“I thought it was kinda hot,” a third pipes up. “You know, swinging fists and stuff.”

“Veronica sure thought it was hot.” The unmistakable voice of Heather Chandler. Veronica feels her stomach drop slightly and her hand goes to her cheek, hoping she’s not blushing. She opts to ignore her, scribbling down labels on a diagram. “Hey, hey Veronica. Veronica. Veronica?”

“What?” she sighs, painfully giving in to the Queen herself. She turns and sees Heather leaning forward on her desk next to Heather Duke, two desks behind her.

“Come on,” she says. “You liked that new kid. Everyone saw you. He sat at your table.”

“I barely know him,” she replies. “Yeah he sat at our table but just because no one else was there.”

“And yet you started talking to him,” Duke reminds her. Chandler side-eyes Duke but remains silent, more interested in watching Veronica squirm.

“I was being friendly,” she explains. _Not that you would know what that’s like_ she thinks.

“Oh get over yourself, you should have seen the way you were drooling over him,” Chandler insists.

“I don’t drool,” she fires back. At least she hopes she doesn’t. “Anyway I don’t even know that much about him.”

When the classroom door opens, she says a silent prayer of gratitude. Chandler closes her mouth, the sly remark dying on her tongue, but she raises her eyebrows when she looks at who walked in.

Mr Matthews enters, leading JD in. He drags his feet slightly, scowling. Mr Matthews looks incredibly pissed as he leads him to his new seat. Just in front of Veronica.

“You all know Jason Dean, our new classmate,” Mr Matthews says. “Now, as we were. We were on the formation of sedimentary rocks…”

Veronica can practically hear Heather laughing at her. She almost laughs at herself the way her heart begins to beat faster when he sits in front of her. But the crazy thing is, only part of her cares. Part of her wants to fall back in line and forget about him. Make it through middle school, keep hanging out with her (still unpopular but at least acceptable) friends, fly under the Heathers’ radar.  And the other part of her wants to keep looking at him and keep getting to know him and maybe be driven even further underground with him.

When class ends, she goes to leave, but he touches her shoulder gently, toying with his paper schedule in his hands and a nervous smile on his face. He looks so different form the boy she saw in the cafeteria it’s dizzying.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was just hoping you could… do you know where Miss Firth’s room is? I have her next. History.”

“Yeah, I have that too,” she replies. “I can walk you.”

“I’d like that,” he says as they start walking. She expects to fight her way through the crowd, but they part for him. In fear or awe, she’s not sure.

“So… that thing you pulled in the cafeteria was pretty severe,” she tells him, hugging her diary to her chest.

“Well the extreme always seems to make an impression,” he admits. “Though it did earn me a week of detention. Apparently I got a light sentence given I’m new here. They’re phoning my dad, so that’ll be a nice dinnertime conversation.” He takes a deep breath, bites his lip and squares his shoulders before putting the smile back on.

“Oh, wow,” she says delicately, wondering what to say. “How do you like the school so far?”

“I’ll admit when I first started I wasn’t crazy about it,” he says. He looks over at her. “But I might like it more than I first thought.”

Okay, maybe this time she is blushing. Still no drool, though.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Thanks Mr Dunnstock,” Veronica says as she jumps out of Martha’s dad’s car. Martha climbs out of the front seat and thanks her dad too before she and Veronica run into the 7/11, the sun just going down behind the towering store. Movie nights and sleepovers had become commonplace for them since they started attending school. When they were five, it was Barbies and ice cream and Disney videos. When they were nine, it was make-overs and pillow fights and promising they’d stay up until midnight and falling asleep at ten thirty. Now they’re twelve, so it’s candy overloads and magazines and games of “would you rather”. And Disney. They always circle back to Disney. Nothing makes Veronica feel more at home than being half asleep on Martha’s couch with a crumpled chocolate wrapper on her stomach and Cinderella on the TV. And three weeks into the school year, with homework beginning to pile up, it’s exactly the break she needed.

They rush into the store, pockets bulging with their saved up allowances. Veronica drew up a careful plan in the back of science class; their combined allowances would get them each a big chocolate bar, a sharing bag of chips and one or two sharing bags of candy, and they’d still have money left over for a pizza to order when they got home. While Martha’s mom had insisted she could buy them a frozen one, they had politely declined. Pizza always tastes so much better coming from their own wallets.

Veronica runs over to the chips section while Martha starts looking at the bags of candy. She reaches up for the original flavour tortilla chips on the top shelf and makes a mental note to ask Martha if her parents have salsa and if not, hope she can make her money stretch towards a pot. She strains up onto her toes and stretches out her arm, her fingers just grazing the bag. She jumps a little, hoping to get it, but to no avail.

Curse her yet-to-come growth spurt. She’s still smaller than most of the girls in her class. Heather Duke towers over her, which isn’t fun when she’s trying not to be intimidated by her.

Beside her, someone takes it off the shelf and hands it to her. She takes it off them with red cheeks and looks up to thank them, expecting it to be an employee.

Instead, it’s JD, of all the people. Red slushie in one hand, the other in the pocket of his jacket.

“Thanks,” she says, holding them close to her chest.

“No problem,” he replies, toying with the straw of his slushie. “You doing something big tonight or just devouring that whole bag in one go?”

“Martha and I are having a sleepover,” she answers.

“Sounds fun,” he replies.

“Yeah,” she says, wiping her sweaty hand on her jeans and clearing her throat. She doesn’t pretend she doesn’t know why he has this effect on her; when he comes into class and takes his seat in front of her, she can’t keep her eyes off him, can’t will her heart to stop beating so damn quickly. “So what are you doing here?” Wow, smooth small talk, Veronica.

“Had a slushie craving,” he answers. “And I had nothing better to do. Either hang out at home.. Or here. My favourite place in the world.”

“Your favourite place is the 7/11?” she asks, looking around her. “No offense but… why?”

“Well,” he says. “You know how I said I’ve moved around a lot? What I’ve noticed is that in every single state I go to there’s a 7/11. Boston, LA, Chicago, Texas…” He freezes, his hand curling into a fist. Veronica debates stepping forward or trying to talk to him; the faraway look in his eyes makes her think he can’t even see her. His hands tighten on the slushie.

“JD?” she asks. She decides to reach out and tap his arm. “Hey, JD?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, shaking his head. He smiles, but his eyes still look… haunted, that would be the word she’d use. “Sorry, got lost in my own head there. Anyway where was I? Right, every city, every state I’ve been to, there’s a 7/11.” He begins strolling up the aisle, walking backwards, motioning for her to follow. She laughs under her breath but does so. “No matter where you go they always look the same. They’re my own little home on the way to home.” He wiggles his slushie in front of her eyes, the ice crystals catching the artificial light. “I can take one of these bad boys and just walk up and down the aisles for as long as I want.”

He takes a long, fast drink out of the slushie.

“You know you’ll get a brain freeze if you drink it that fast,” she remarks. He stops drinking and, just as she predicted, winces at the brain freeze.

“Maybe that was the idea,” he tells her, smiling against the pain in his head.

“Veronica?”

She turns to see Martha standing a bit behind her, holding a bag of chips, giant candy bar and two bags of assorted candies. Martha shifts from foot to foot as she looks at her best friend and JD. Veronica turns back to him, smiling sheepishly.

“I should go,” she said, tossing the bag of chips lightly in her hands. “Thanks again for these.”

“Any time,” he replies with a smile. “Enjoy your sleepover.” He turns away from her and wanders off down the aisle, continuing to drink his slushie while his free hand trails along the shelves.

She wonders what he meant about the brain freezes.

In Martha’s house, they spread their 7/11 stash out on the coffee table and Veronica orders the pizza before they change into her pyjamas. Veronica hops into her sleeping bag and curls up on the armchair in Martha’s living room while Martha stretches hers out on the couch, reminding her that she’s more than welcome to take the couch if she wants.

“Hey, Veronica,” she begins while eating a slice of plain cheese. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go for it,” she replies, wiping her greasy hands on her sleeping bag. One of them should have brought paper towels.

“Do you like JD?” she asks. The questions catches Veronica off guard.

“Do I like him?” she echoes. “I mean, he’s okay I guess. He seems cool. I don’t not like him-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Martha tells her, scooting closer to her. “I meant do you, you know…” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Like-like him?”

“Martha!” she laughs. “No, of course not!” If she’s honest, she doesn’t really know if she’s telling the truth or not. Whatever this is, it’s new for her.

“I think he might like you,” she tells her.

“What makes you think that?” she asks, trying to sound casual, but the way her heart flutters and a smile forces its way onto her face betrays her. Martha looks through their sugar feast on the table and picks up one of her magazines, flipping it open to the middle.

“Here,” she says, showing her the page, which says in big pink lettering “Ten Signs A Boy Wants To Be More Than Friends”.

“And you think JD wants to be more than friends?” Veronica asks. “I’m not even sure we’re friends yet.”

“Well let’s see,” Martha says, reading the magazine. “See? Number two, he always finds excuses to talk to you. JD’s always trying to talk to you.”

“Martha, I’m the only one he tries talks to,” she reminds her. Martha raises her eyebrows as if Veronica’s just proven her point.

“Number five, he laughs at your jokes,” she reads. “The other day, JD laughed when you made that joke at lunch.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, laughing herself. “Because it was funny.” At lunch, Betty had been saying that she had seen paper spray on sale in the store with her mum, and Veronica had joked that it was in case people are victims of a-salt. JD, who was leaning against the wall reading yet another book, looked up and laughed.

Which he should have. Because it was funny.

“Okay,” Martha says, clearly not entirely convinced. “Well what about this? ‘He keeps finding reasons to touch you’.”

“I don’t know,” Veronica says, shrugging. “I don’t count.”

“Well, I do,” Martha says. “He’s always finding reasons to touch you. Like when you two walk to geography together. I see him, Veronica. He keeps brushing his hand against yours.” Veronica stops and thinks about it. She rubs the back of her hand, feeling in her mind how JD’s brushes against hers in the crowded hallways. But she knows that’s only because he keeps getting knocked against her.

“We’re just friends, Martha,” she says. “Actually, I don’t think we’re even friends.” Martha shakes her head, a small sad smile on her face.

“You should see the way he looks at you,” she says, her voice slightly deflated. She looks down at her hands, linking and unlinking her fingers.

“Martha?”

“It’s nothing,” she sighs. “I just hope someone looks at me like that one day.”

Veronica sits up in her sleeping bag and half-jumps, half-shuffles over to Martha. At least that makes her laugh. She drops to her knees beside her, wrapping her arm around her shoulders.

“Martha,” she says, her heart slightly breaking. “Martha, someone will one day. Trust me.”

“You really think so?” she asks, starting to smile. “Or are you just saying that because you’re my best friend?”

“Of course I think so,” she replies. “Martha, you’re super kind, crazy smart and funny.” She jumps up onto the sofa beside her. “And besides, who cares about some dumb boys?” Martha huffs a laugh and leans her head against Veronica’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Veronica.”

“And anyway… if you want, you can take JD, I’m not using him right now.” That makes Martha really laugh, throwing back her head and scrunching up her eyes and her shoulders beginning to shake.

“He’s all yours,” she says, getting up to lift a slice of pizza from the table. “He’s not my type.”

“You have a type?”

“Of course.” Veronica fights the urge to roll her eyes. She loves Martha, but she’ll never get why of all the boys at school, she had to fall for Ram Sweeney.

Still, for now, she banishes all thoughts of boys from her mind and presses her cheek against Martha’s shoulder while they settle on a video to watch while Veronica braids Martha’s hair before they inevitably crash from the sugar high and fall asleep a little after midnight, Martha curled up on the couch with Veronica practically on top of her, forgetting that the world outside of Martha’s house and anyone other than the two of them exists.

                                                                                                    *****

When she gets to geography on Monday, JD is already there, lost in another book. Before she can even realise what she’s doing, Veronica brushes her hair behind her ear and pulls her jumper down before she approaches him.

“Hey,” she greets. He looks up at her and smiles. He slides his bookmark in and sets his book aside, turning his body towards her.

“Salutations,” he replies. “How was your sleepover?”

“Great,” she says, taking her seat behind him. “You know, just watched Pinocchio and ate pizza.” And talked about you, she thinks but won’t say.

“Ah,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “I believe that’s what they would call, girl stuff.”

“I guess,” she admits, scratching behind her ear. “What about you? Do anything fun over the weekend?”

“Oh, lots,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I went a little crazy and unpacked one whole box in my room.” He opens his mouth wide in a pantomime of shock and Veronica giggles. “Wait and see, this week I plan to go completely bananas and even put things on a shelf.”

“Wow, slow down, someone might call the cops on you,” she continues. “So you’re still not unpacked then?”

“Nah. It always takes a while to get everything completely out.” He lifts a pencil off his desk and toys with it; poking it in the middle of his hand, slapping it against his palm. “But then…I mean, if I’m away in a few weeks, what’s the point, right?” He forces a smile on his face.

“Oh,” she says. She doesn’t look him in the eye, instead looking at her desk, focussing on the graffiti on the wood. His eyes follow hers.

“Well,” he says. “Guess while I’m here, I might as well make my mark, right?” She looks up and watches him take a pen out of his pocket. “It’s your desk. May I?” She nods, a smile creeping on her face. He leans forward and presses the pen into the wood, moving it almost frantically, going over lines three, four, five times, making it sink in. Making it last. He leans back when he’s finished, gesturing with his hand. “What do you think?” She looks at the spot where he was writing. There’s a ‘J.D.’ written there in black ink and sharp lines.

“Now you’re in Westerburg Middle School forever,” she says. An idea unfurls in her mind, a little more daring than she would normally think, and she bites her lip. “Can I…” He slowly hands her over the pen and there’s what she can only describe as an intrigued smile as she starts just below his. It’s harder than he made it look, writing on wood, and she goes over the lines a few times.

But within what seems like no time at all, there’s a ‘V.S.’ just underneath ‘J.D.’.

“Wow,” he breathes.

“Think I should do what you do?” she asks, glancing up at him through her hair. “Have people start calling me VS?” He shakes his head lightly, biting his lip.

“I think Veronica suits you,” he tells her, looking down at his hands. “It’s pretty. Like you are.”

The pen nearly falls from her hands. She feels like all the air has been sucked out of her lungs as a blush creeps up her cheeks and across her nose.

No one has ever called her pretty before. Her parents used to call her beautiful when she was younger but she realised that that’s what every parent calls their kids. Martha has called her beautiful too but as a friend. No one has called her pretty before, and no one has said anything to her with the expression JD has right now. She’d almost say he looks bashful, smiling ever so slightly, looking nervously at her while he fidgets.

She worries she’s in danger of falling off her seat but then she doesn’t care. All she can hear is the word ‘pretty’ echoing in her mind.

“You’re blushing,” Heather Chandler tells her as she walks past, whacking her desk with her bag as she goes. Veronica frowns at her and looks to JD, who’s still just looking at her.

“Thanks,” she manages, her voice as small as a mouse’s. She smacks herself internally. All she could come up with was ‘thanks’? Still, his smile grows bigger and he pushes his dark curls out of his eyes. Mr Matthews walks in and he turns around, but he keeps his eyes on her for as long as he can and god, does it make her insides melt.

Screw Heather Chandler, she thinks. She can be as read as the scrunchie in her hair and she’ll remain that way if only he keeps looking at her like that.

With fifteen minutes left in the class, Mr Matthews springs the first fun event of the year on them; their semester projects are due soon, and this time, now that they’re in seventh grade, they can do them in pairs. Initially, a cheer erupts in the class, the room overflowing with overlapping voices claiming their friends as partners. Veronica sits amongst the noise, resenting the fact that Martha isn’t in her class and they can’t be partners, the way they’ve been for everything, until she remembers who is in front of her. He hasn’t moved since the assignment’s been announced; his desk partner is leaning across the room to talk to his friend.

“Okay, okay, but…” Mr Matthews says. “You’re not choosing your partner.”

Veronica isn’t sure she’s ever seen a room change so quickly. Excitable chatter quickly turns to groans and whines and protests of unfairness. It’s kind of funny admittedly, but Veronica can’t help but feel a little bit deflated.

She just hopes she doesn’t get saddled with a Heather.

While his class protest, Mr Matthews lifts out a small, hard plastic bowl, containing small slips of paper.

“You’ll draw names from this,” he explains over the dwindling noise. “It’s completely random, luck of the draw.” He shakes the bowl for good measure and presents it to them like it’s a prize. “So who wants the first pick?”

“I’ll do it,” JD pipes up. Mr Matthews seems taken aback by his enthusiasm, but nonetheless invites him up to the front. Veronica finds herself holding her breath as he reaches in and picks out a piece of paper. There’s 28 names written in there. 27 not counting his. She’s one in 27.

“So,” he says. “Who did you get, Jason?” JD gives a low chuckle when he opens the paper.

“Veronica Sawyer,” he replies, showing him the slip. He turns and smiles at her and she smiles right back, her feet dancing under the desk.

She can’t even hear Heather Chandler’s faux-vomiting behind her.

She and JD walk out of class together, closer than most other people in the hallway are, him reading the assignment off the page everyone was given.

“It doesn’t look that hard,” she says. The assignment a five minute oral report on either earthquakes or volcanoes, using recent examples and visual clues.

“No it doesn’t,” he agrees. “Are you free on Friday?”

“Mmm-hmm.” His walk slows down and he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Want to come over to my house to work on it?” he asks. “My dad won’t be home until late, so it’ll be quiet. And I can make pasta.”

“Sure,” she says. She thinks briefly that she should take up drama, because she’s amazing at making herself seem calm when really, she’s bouncing up and down inside. “And what about tomorrow, after school, just to get it started? We can go to the library?”

“Sounds awesome,” he says. They come to the corner of the hallway, where the two corridors diverged. Veronica looks down one and he looks down the other.

“I have French now,” she explains. He nods, biting his lip.

“And I have English,” he replies, his shoulders sagging. “Well, au reviour, Veronica.”

“Bye,” she replies instead, starting to giggle. She stays put for a while wand watches him go, his black coat standing out among all the other students.

She’s grown up enough to admit it to herself. She, as Martha would put it, has it bad.

On Friday, JD meets Veronica after her last class of the day, Math. She bids goodbye to Martha, who gives her a knowing smile that tells her exactly what her best friend is thinking, and she and JD go out the main door together, walking out the gate along with a sea of students and he starts leading her down his path home. He had told her at lunch on Thursday it was a long walk and he hoped she didn’t mind. Really, she doesn’t, not when the weather is nice enough and they go into a small store on the way and buy candy bars and he’s by her side talking about everything and nothing.

When they do reach his house, its much bigger than Veronica expected, especially considering it was just JD and his dad. Dark red brick and black tiled roof and a wooden porch with steps they run up. Up close, she can see it isn’t perfect; paint peels and chips off the door, the porch has bars missing and the windows don’t have curtains. But even with all that it’s pretty breathaking.

“Wow,” she says. “Your house is amazing.”

“It’s okay,” he says, turning the key in the lock. “Dad got it cheap enough.” He leads her into an uncarpeted wooden floor hallway, plain walls with stained-looking white paint and through into the small kitchen. The walls are red and there’s nothing on them, just like in the hallway, and the fridge door is completely bare. JD opens it and takes out two cans of Diet Coke, handing one to Veronica. “Sorry about the mess, we’re still not entirely unpacked.” She looks around and sees what he means; there’s still boxes sitting around the place, as well as jackets slung on the chairs and couch, and a few empty beer cans next to the couch. He takes her by the hand and leads her into the living room that follows on from the kitchen. It’s not as bare as the rest of the house; there’s a circular red rug on the floor and a beige leather couch and a TV set propped up on a wooden table, as well as a few pictures and books along one of the shelves. “As you can see I tried to do a bit of decorating. Make the place nice.”

“Just for me?” she jokes and he laughs. He doesn’t stop her when she walks over to the shelf, eyes scanning over the books and photos. She spots Moby Dick and Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein and Dracula. “Are these all yours?”

“Yeah,” he answers, coming up behind her. “I got most of them second hand at this bookstore a last year. She almost laughs; she can’t imagine going near anything that deep. Her eyes move to the photos. She sees one of a toddler in a blue onesie with little dark curls chewing on the ear of a toy rabbit. No mistake, it’s JD. Brave, she touches her finger to the glass and chuckles, turning to him.

“You were cute,” she tells him. She looks at the one beside it; a woman with dark brown hair and brown eyes and dark skin, standing in a green dress, smiling, one hand on her prominent baby bump. Her chin is identical to the one of the boy next to her, who stiffens, catching his breath.

“That would be my mom,” he says.

“She’s pretty.”

“Yeah, she was.”

Veronica’s mouth falls open. God, how could she have missed it? Never talking about his mother, only mentioning his father, and having her picture out pride of place on his shelf. God she’s so stupid.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t-”

“It’s okay,” he says, his voice flat.  He rolls his lips into a thin line so that they almost disappear. “It was two years ago.” He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair, and seems to do a complete 180. “Anyway, let’s start this project, shall we?”

Despite the awkward conversation about his mom, and the fact that it’s school work, working on the project with JD actually turns out to be fun. Really fun. So fun they pass nearly two hours in almost no time at all. They piece together information from the books strewn around them and sketch out rough diagrams. JD seems fascinated by volcanoes, and especially about Pompeii. His eyes light up when he talks about them, he revels in each new piece of information they learn.

“A whole city,” he says, turning the page. “A whole city just… gone.” He gestures with his arm, sweeping broadly across the air as though he’s the lava and his living room is Pompeii. “I mean one mountain had all that power. It’s crazy. And none of them even knew about it until it was too late.”

“Wow, you’re really into this,” she remarks, a book balanced on her knees. He runs his hand through his hair and nods, shrugging.

“I just think… all that power, all that chaos and destruction just came from one mountain,” he explains. “A whole city was gone. You know I was reading about it once, I heard that when these explorers went and dug it up, under the ash, it was exactly like it was back then. People were frozen in the places they were in when they were running.” There’s something in his eyes that Veronica can’t quite place; some kind of excitement that makes her feel like he’s not all here. It’s gone soon though, replaced by something close to sheepish and a soft smile. “Anyway… What have we got so far?”

“Um, how volcanoes are formed,” she says, flicking through her pages of notes. That should take up about two minutes, if we want to leave room for the rest of the stuff-” She’s cut off by her stomach making an embarrassingly loud rumble. She hasn’t eaten a full meal since lunch, and while the candy bars she and JD had bought in the store were great, they weren’t exactly filling. Still, she cringes, blushing to the roots of her hair, and when JD giggles, she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

“I would ask if you’re hungry,” he jokes. She responds by lifting a cushion off the couch and throwing it at his head. He catches it expertly and looks at the clock on the wall. “Yeah, so am I.” He gets up and holds his hand out to her. She takes it and lets him lift her to her feet while her embarrassment fades. “Come on, let’s see what we have.” He doesn’t let go of her hand, not that she’s complaining, and leads her into the kitchen.

“Should we wait for your dad to get back?” she asks, rubbing the back of her neck. She’s watched her mother cooking more times than she can remember but wouldn’t have the first clue about how to work the cooker herself. JD, however, jumps up onto the counter and starts looking through the cupboards.

“You wouldn’t want my dad near an oven if you knew him,” he says. “He somehow manages to undercook and overcook. Do you like pasta?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” He lifts out a packet and keeps looking before taking out a heavy looking jar. “Tomato and basil sauce?”

“Sounds great.”

He jumps down from the counter and starts working like it’s second nature to him. Veronica watches, half fascinated. As far as she is concerned, this is the adult’s world, and yet JD runs it without a problem. She wants to ask how when he learned to cook, but he question sits dominant on her tongue.

“Don’t look too impressed,” he tells her as he fills up the pot with water and brings it over to the stove. “Pasta’s not that hard.” He opens the pasta packet and starts pouring in as much as he can. “Except for when you’re trying to judge how much is enough. Then it’s a minefield.” She wonders exactly how much he thinks is enough, because while she’s no expert, what he’s putting in seems way too much for two people, especially people as small as them. She stands next to him as he turns the stove on, minute flames dancing on the ring. “After my mom died, I was on my own a lot. Dad likes to work late.” Veronica nods. Her question is seemingly answered, but part of her wishes he wasn’t telling her. How does she react to something like this? “So I learned a lot. How to cook pasta, do laundry, get my ass to school on time, pay for the cable, get groceries. Etcetera, etcetera.”

“Oh,” she says, searching for the appropriate response. “That… must have been hard.” He shrugs casually but bites his lip hard. He lets his hair fall in front of his face.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says, his voice thin. He coughs into the crook of his arm. “But you know… everyone has to learn about this some time. I just got the accelerated course of study.” He lets out a dark chuckle. “AP class in adulthood. Maybe that’s why I’m so much more mature than the meatheads in our grade.”

“Are you calling me a meathead?” Veronica asks playfully. When he looks at her however, it isn’t playful. It reminds Veronica of how she felt when he dropped the bombshell about his mother. The look of internally kicking yourself in the shin.

“Of course not,” he says, his voice lined with sincere regret. “Sorry… ego took over for a second. You’re not a meathead. You’re… you’re awesome.” She laughs, a little too loud in her mind, but he just smiles at her. At least she didn’t snort, she thinks to herself. “Come on, I think this is ready.”

They sit at JD’s small, round kitchen table, a bowl of pasta each and some left in the covered saucepan for JD’s dad when he gets in.

“If he gets in tonight,” JD adds, and Veronica’s heart skips a beat. Her mind races to horror stories she’s heard about people going missing, and JD’s casual tone slightly frightens her. She must look at shocked as she feels because he quickly clarifies. “Sometimes he doesn’t get home until after I go to bed. So he doesn’t even eat anything until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, you make awesome pasta.”

“Don’t praise me,” he tells her. “Praise Mr Grossman, the maker of that sauce.” He kisses his fingers in a pantomime of an Italian chef. “Perfection. Get your mom to buy it for you.”

“I could tell her I can make pasta now,” she says. “She can take nights off.”

“Hold onto your childhood,” he tells her. “Let your mom keep doing the cooking.”

After JD puts the empty bowls in the sink, he lifts out two cookies for dessert and tosses one to her.

“Perks of getting to do your own grocery shopping,” he tells her as they sit back down to their project. “And my dad is none the wiser.”

A key turns in the front door, making Veronica look up and JD jump.

“Shit,” he whispers, looking from the direction of the door to her. “Shit.”

“Is everything okay?” she asks. She’s never seen that look on his face before; his cheeks start to turn red and his eyes are wide and he chews the side of his lip in his nerves.

“My dad’s home,” he states, as if she hadn’t worked that out. “Um, I’m sorry, he’s a little… You should probably go home now.”

The abruptness of his words take her aback, hitting her in the chest. Still, she nods just as the door opens and begins packing away her stuff in her bag, taking her time while JD hurries. The contrast in their actions hurts her, despite her best attempts to brush it off

“You can hold onto all the notes,” he tells her, handing her the pages of her scribbled handwriting. “You did most of them anyway. What about I keep the diagrams?” She nods slowly, slinging her bag onto her shoulder. JD’s shoulders drop and he lets out a sigh, his expression guilt-ridden. “Look, I’m sorry… it’s just my dad… I thought he’d be home later and he gets weird when I have people over.”

“JD I won’t judge,” she promises. He nods but doesn’t seem to hear her, his face growing panicked when he hears the footsteps in the hall getting louder.

“I know,” he says distractedly, running his hand through his hair as he looks towards the hall. “Just… I think it is best if you go.”

Before Veronica can even agree, his dad enters. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from him, JD rarely talks about him and when he does, the words aren’t flattering. His dad has the same dark hair as him, but where JD’s is a mess of curls, his dad’s is slicked back. His eyes are small, there’s stubble and a grimace on his round face. He’s short and thin and wearing a beige jacket over a yellow checked shirt and jeans, which has the bulge of a cigarette packet in them. He carries a crate of some kind of beer under his arm. It’s not a brand Veronica recognises; she’s only ever seen her dad drink and it’s not one he drinks.

Everything about JD changes when he comes in. She sees his shoulders tense, his grip on the drawings in his hand tightening until he crumples the paper, his back straightening, a blush coming into his cheeks. He ducks his head slightly, letting his hair hide his eyes. She even hears his breathing get heavier.

“Hey dad,” his dad-Mr Dean, she supposes-says, taking a can out of the crate and depositing the rest in the fridge. JD shoots an apologetic look to a confused Veronica. “How was work today? It was miserable.” He takes a long sip of the can in his hand, leaning on the kitchen table. “Some old bitch says I don’t have the right permit to blow up that hotel.” JD looks at the ground. The paper in his hand is crushed into a ball. The silence feels like it’s suffocating Veronica as she looks from JD to his dad to the floor, wondering what the hell she’s meant to do now. “Gee dad, I almost for got to introduce my new friend here.” He gets up from the table and crosses over to them, sitting comfortably down on the couch, looking at the pair of them expectedly.

“Dad, this is Veronica,” he introduces. “She just came over to work on a project.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, extending her hand. Mr Dean laughs, deep and loud.

“Get your own, cutie, there’s some in the fridge,” he says. Veronica lets her hand drop to her side and curl into a fist.

“Anyway, Veronica was just leaving,” JD says. He takes her arm and the sudden grip on her nearly makes her squeal.

“She doesn’t have to.” Mr Dean leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, looking at her with an unsettling grin. “Can’t my little friend stay for dinner, Dad?”

“We already ate,” JD shoots back. “There’s pasta in the pot if you want some.”

Before his dad can say anything else, JD takes Veronica down the hall. Well, ‘takes’ is a kind word. The more appropriate word would be ‘drag’. She can’t even catch her breath as he drags her to the front door, her tripping over her feet and struggling to keep her bag on her shoulder. When they get to the door, he turns her around to face her, his face a mix of so many different emotions; the telltale blush of humiliation, a grimace of regret, his eyes confused.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her again. “I told you, my dad gets weird when I have people home.”

“It’s okay,” she says. It doesn’t feel okay, but she lets it slide. He gives her a shaky smile.

“I’ll see you on Monday? Maybe we can go to the library?”

“Sure. Yeah that’s… that’s fine.” He nods and opens the front door and she takes the hint and steps out. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice tight. “Bye Veronica.”

“Bye, JD.”

He closes the door and leaves her alone on the porch, her heart slightly racing. She wobbles backwards before turning around and running down the steps. It’s colder than she thought it would be; goosebumps form on her arms despite her jacket-she’s not wearing her jacket. She kicks herself as she pictures it perfectly. Her jacket is sitting on the Deans’ couch. She debates for a moment going back in and getting it, but JD made it fairly clear he didn’t want her in his house and if she’s honest with herself, she’s not sure she wants to be in his house while his dad’s there.

                                                                                                ******

JD stays at the door for a second, looking through the thin windows at Veronica. There’s something lovely in the way she walks. At school, she tends to walk with her head down a little, but on the street, when she’s alone, or when she was walking with him, she looks lost in her own world.

He’d do anything to live in that world with her. Instead, he has to go back to the world in his kitchen.

He finds his dad scooping the pasta in to a bowl. He doesn’t look up when JD enters, though it’s not like he would have expected him to. Most days he’s lucky if he gets a nod.

“Well, champ, Veronica seems like a real nice girl,” JD says loudly. “Oh she is. Yeah she just came over to work on a project.” He just keeps eating. JD sticks his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking as the silence stretches out between them. “Anyway I’m glad you’re making friends here, son.” His dad regards him with a look, and for a moment he hopes he’s gotten through to him. After all, this is a fairly big revelation. The first time in two years he’s had a real friend. They should go out for ice cream like normal people do when their kid gets an A on a test.

“Did the rent come in?” he asks instead. JD bites back his scream.

“Yeah,” he says. “The letter came in this morning.” He gestures to the white envelope on the table. “You’ll find my contribution in your room.” He nods and goes back to his pasta. JD wants him to tell him it’s good. To thank him for cooking. To promise to pay him back. To ask him about school, about Veronica, about his project. Instead he just looks straight through him.

His eyes land on the empty dishes in the sink and his hand twitches. He crosses over to the sink and grabs on of them. His breaths come deeply and slowly and raggedly. The unbroken plate sits there like an itch begging to the scratched.

So he smashes it on the floor. It goes into five pieces.

His dad jumps and turns around, leaning on the chair and raising an eyebrow. You’d think he caught his son using the wrong grammar (or, that would be the case if his dad ever cared about grammar).

“How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?” he sighs. “That shit costs money, you know.” Two sentences. Nineteen words. But for those two sentences, he has a father.

The other plate ends up smashed on the floor before he has time to think. Seven pieces this time. His dad rolls his eyes and glares at him.

“That’s coming out of your allowance,” he grumbles. He turns away from him and hunches his shoulders. Even from across the kitchen, JD shivers.  He wonders if he should remind his dad that he doesn’t actually give him allowance, that all his money for rent and slushies comes from newspaper runs.

He makes a mental note to check who needs a newspaper boy in this town.

He wonders briefly if he should clean up the mess he made, and even bends down for a moment. He looks over at his dad. His still, silent, oblivious dad.

“Be careful there, son, you could cut yourself on those sharp edges,” he says to his dad’s back. “Why don’t you go on upstairs, I’ll sort that out.”

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He runs over to the couch and grabs his bag, haphazardly throwing pieces of the project in there with shaking hands, not knowing or caring what they are. He just wants to get out of there as soon as possible. Maybe escape into a book or run up the 7/11.

Just as he’s passing the couch, he sees it. Veronica’s blue denim jacket. He internally slaps himself for forgetting to give it to her before quite literally throwing her out the door. He picks it up, rubbing the material between his fingers, remembering how it looked over the long green dress she had been wearing. He finds it amazing how she doesn’t seem to care about her looks, not like the Heathers and their carefully coordinated skirts, but she’s easily the prettiest girl in their class.

“What’s that?” his dad asks. JD can’t help but smile. Even the smallest sentences out of his dad come as a victory. Even more so when he doesn’t need to break something to get it.

“Veronica left her jacket here,” he explains, avoiding his dad’s gaze. He grunts in response. “I’ll have to give it back to her on Monday.” He knows his dad’s not listening at this point, but it’s fun to pretend just this once. “If she’s still talking to me.”

He decides to shut himself up in his room that night. He carefully places Veronica’s jacket on the back of a wooden chair in his room and lays back on his bed. Beside the bed, there’s one box marked “JD’s clothes” and another marked “JD’s stuff”. He’s gone over the words quite a few times, but his mom’s handwriting it still just about visible. He rolls over, traces the faint script with his finger and digs out a book he’s read at least fifteen times and starts reading it again, revelling in the familiarity allowing his mind to wander. Not long after he picks it up, he puts the book down and settles for staring up at the ceiling.

He shouldn’t get too attached to Veronica. He knows it’s just a matter of time before his dad packs him into the back of his car and they take along drive to wherever it is next. The first time they moved, it was exciting. Then the second time it was less so. When the third time rolled around, JD caught on. They’re never going to stay in one place for too long now. He’s living out of a suitcase and a cardboard box. Veronica says she’s known these people all her life and he considers her lucky. He barely remembers his old friends.

When his mom was alive, they didn’t need to move so much. They still moved, but after a few years of staying around, when the idea of going to a new place would be an adventure rather than a burden. He’s been to three new schools in the two years since she died.

JD rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes tightly. He will not cry. His dad will not make him cry. He won’t get that out of him. He rolls over more so that his face is planted in his pillow and he pushes the sides of it into his ears, blocking out the world. What he really wants is a slushie; a nice trick he stumbled upon a year ago. Drink it fast and let your mind go numb. You stop thinking, breathing, existing, everything stops except the pain in your head. But unfortunately he doesn’t have the money for one after paying his share of the rent and even if he did, it might involve having to pass his father in the hallway, so he settles for pressing his face further and further into the pillow until colours shoot around the backs of his eyelids and his ears start ringing.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does anyway, his fingers letting go of the pillow, his breathing evening out. He whimpers slightly and shifts onto his side, unconsciously grabbing the blanket for something to hold on to. Still, even in all the vulnerability and weakness of sleep, he doesn’t cry.


	3. Chapter 3

Veronica pulls her knees closer to her, her diary resting on her pyjama-clad legs with her back against the bed board, 11:15 flashing on the alarm clock beside her bed. She doodles some hearts in the corner and margins of the page and doesn’t even pretend like she doesn’t know why she’s doing that.

_Dear diary,_

_Weird day at JD’s place. I mean, it started off good. Actually, it started off great. We talked and we laughed and it was awesome. And he’s funny. Really funny, like he’s not even trying to be. He keeps telling me that he thinks I’m smart, which feels great, but he’s smarter. He reads so many books, ones I’d never even think about. He reads stuff that’s on the high school reading lists for fun. He’s kind of creative when it comes to this project stuff. And he likes talking about volcanoes. Maybe a little too enthusiastic about them but that’s nothing._

_He makes his own dinner, which is-well it’s not normal. No one makes their own dinner. I can’t even work the oven, Betty wouldn’t know where to start and Martha wouldn’t even think of it. But he says he cooks for himself a lot. And pay rent and do laundry. I don’t know how weird that is._

_I can’t believe I didn’t work it out about his mom. I just wanted to kick myself when he said it. I wonder how she died. I’m obviously not going to ask just…. I don’t know, I guess it would be interesting (I guess) to know. He looked really upset when I brought her up. He looks like her._

_And then there’s his dad. His dad is… weird. I know that it’s rude to say that about someone else’s dad but he is. And in fairness, JD seems to think his dad’s weird too. I thought he was overreacting but his dad is seriously weird. First things first, he calls JD ‘Dad’. He also drinks, and even offered me one. It had to be a joke, right? There’s no way an adult would offer a kid a beer. And he makes JD cook for him. Okay, maybe he doesn’t make him. Maybe JD just does it to be a good kid._

_I think JD was scared of me meeting him. Not going to lie, I wasn’t exactly flattered when he started dragging me down the hallway._

Her pen pauses hovering over the paper as she relives the experience, the haste with which he pulled her down the hall, the redness in his cheeks as they said their goodbyes at the door, the way he avoided meeting her eyes. Did he avoid meeting her eyes or was that just her imagination? She had assumed by the look on his face that he was embarrassed by his father, but what if he wasn’t the one JD had been embarrassed by.

 _What if he didn’t want his dad to meet me?_ She writes slowly, the possibility creeping into and taking over her mind. _What if he’s embarrassed by me? Or was he worried I was going to judge him after it? Or if I wouldn’t want to hang out with him?_

She tells herself not to be so stupid. That JD wouldn’t keep hanging out with her and wouldn’t have taken her to his house if he was embarrassed by her. But then why would he want her to leave whenever his dad came in? Did he notice that she had left her jacket there? What did he do with it?

She slams her diary shut and throws it onto the bed like it’s a basketball, pushing her hair out of her face.

“You’re being dumb,” she tells herself under her breath. She tries to distract herself, picking up her bag and looking through it. She takes out her math books and begins to go through fractions. She definitely gets a few of them wrong but it’s a good way to numb her brain.

“Veronica?” Her bedroom door opens and her mom comes in, balancing a plate of crackers in one hand and holding a glass of juice in the other. Veronica looks down and sees her nudging the door open with her foot. “I brought you a snack.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she says as she sets it on her bedside table. Veronica moves over her alarm clock to make room, but otherwise the table is bare. No matter how many times she’s begged for a phone in her room. She’s even picked out the one she wants, the one that would look best in her room. Her parents keep asking what exactly she’d do with a phone in her room and shake their heads with small laughs when she says ‘talk to people’. They always reply ‘Martha doesn’t live that far away’. What they don’t seem to know is that she doesn’t always feel like running down to Martha’s house. Especially if she wants to talk about something she wouldn’t want her parents to overhear. Something that includes the letters J and D.

“So how was your friends’ house?” her mom asks, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Fine,” she says, taking a bite out of a cracker. Just the ones Veronica likes. “He’s new here.”

“Well it’s nice that you’re making him feel welcome,” she says. “Are you ever going to have him over too, like you do with Martha.”

“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging and hoping her mom doesn’t notice her blushing. Do girls usually invite their crushes over to have dinner with their parents? She’d ask Martha but Ram has barely looked at her since kindergarten. She looks over at the plate on her table. It’s not that much, probably took her mom two minutes to spread cheese on a few crackers and put them on the plate. “You know, I can get my own snacks.”

“I don’t mind, sweetheart,” her mom replies, placing her hand on her knee.

“You know, JD makes his own dinner,” she tells her. Her mom frowns and moves closer to her.

“He does?”

“Yeah. His dad works late so he makes it himself. He made dinner for us tonight,” she goes on. Her mom looks away from her, her eyebrows furrowed. “Mom?” Something in Veronica’s gut sits uneasily with her. It takes a while to realise where she recognises this feeling from; JD’s house when she brought up his mom. The ‘why did you say that’ feeling when you know keeping your mouth shut may have been better.

“Well, JD can do that if he has to,” her mom says, taking her hand. The action takes her by surprise. “But you have parents who can make snacks for you. And make dinner for you.” She runs her thumb along the back of her hand, her head nodding gently, her lips moving very slightly. “Don’t stay up too late, sweetie.” She kisses her on the forehead before leaving.

Once her mom closes the door, Veronica throws her books off the bed and picks her diary back up. She leaves another page blank after her entry five minutes ago, just in case she needs to write anything else about JD and his dad and starts on the next page.

_Dear diary,_

_Sometimes I wonder if my mom knows how old I am. It’s not that I don’t mind her bringing me snacks, I just think I should be able to get my own snacks. Hell, if JD can cook for himself, so can I, right?_

_I kind of hope she stops calling me sweetie too. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I’m nearly 13. Isn’t that the age your parents stop calling you sweetie? Heather Duke is 13 in October and I’m pretty sure her parents don’t call her sweetie._

_Okay so that’s a bad comparison. No one would call Heather Duke sweetie._

Out of nowhere, she remembers what JD said to her in his house. To hang onto her childhood. She wonders what he meant by that. Being a kid sucks, no one listens to her, she can’t go where she wants, she has to be home by eight, and she has homework every night. And can’t have a phone in her room. Why should she hang on to that?

And her mind is back on JD.

She tells herself that she really needs to either get over this crush or they need to start dating just so she can get him off her mind.

She’s almost scandalised by her own mind. She doesn’t even write it in her diary. She hasn’t even had a boyfriend before, or even considered one until now. The thought of it shouldn’t make her blush this hard but it does. She takes a bite out of another cracker and just feels glad her mom isn’t still around to watch her blush.

                                                                                                *****

JD adjusts his bag on his shoulder as he walks past the school gates, Veronica’s jacket making it heavier than usual. Almost no one is in yet aside from janitors and a few teachers, who barely glance at him as he passes by. His hair is matted down slightly from the light rain shower that morning, which seems to have cleared up now. He probably should have waited before leaving the house but his dad hadn’t gone into work yet and JD didn’t feel like nursing a hangover right then. He did do the nice thing and leave a prairie oyster sitting on the counter, though. God knows what it would taste like when his old man gets out of bed but hey, not his problem.

His homeroom is empty when he comes in, which suits him just fine. He drapes his jacket over the back of the chair and works on some homework he didn’t get done over the weekend. As he looks through his bag for his science book, his fingers brush past his geography notes and he tenses. Veronica still has the other half of the project.

She’s never going to want to talk to him again. Not after he threw her out of his house like that. His father had come home earlier than expected and well, he panicked. He never really got as far as friends meeting his dad, not since before his mom died. He was ready to commit himself to not having anyone and playing the lone wolf until college, and then she showed up and dashed his plans. She had talked to him and laughed with him and asked him about himself. She made him feeling wanted for the first time in two years.

And now that’s gone. So he guesses that’s what he gets for having expectations.

What’s she going to think of him now? The boy with the crazy dad? She’s smart and he knows she has good parents. She’ll have told them everything by now and they’ll probably tell her to stay as far away from him as she can, and even if they didn’t, she’s probably way too put off by his piece of crap dad to go near him again.

He slams his hand on the desk, needing a release. He rubs his forehead, trying to get his thoughts under control. He needs to go numb, he needs a slushie, but he’s stuck here instead. He can’t read right now, he’s got himself too worked up and angry to focus, his mind running rampant.

Ms Murphy walks in, blinking at him in surprise. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that he’s not exactly her favourite student. He doesn’t tend to be a teacher’s pet.

“You’re in early, Jason,” she points out, sitting at her desk. He only nods, which she probably doesn’t see from the front of the classroom. He puts on a façade of reading, but the words are meaningless now. “Jason… how are you finding Westerberg?”

“Fine,” he says flatly. It’s not the worst school he’s ever been in, that honour goes to LA and that piece of shit English teacher who could still hit kids. Or maybe he couldn’t, no one bothered to check.

“Making friends?” she continues.

“A few.” Ms Murphy rolls her lips into a thin line and nods. He briefly wonders what the teachers say about him in the teacher’s lounge. Probably something like ‘Jason Dean, the reason I deserve a pay raise’.

“And…” Good God if this lady asks him one more question about school he’s going to start screaming. “How are things at home?”

His head snaps up, his mouth opening and closing.

“Fine,” he says. That’s what he should say, right? That’s what he says when adults ask anything because it keeps them out of his business. And that’s the answer they want. Mutually beneficial. They get a false sense of security, he gets to keep living his life.

Except it’s not what he gets, because Ms Murphy comes down to his desk, wringing her hands awkwardly. She pauses, not sure what to do with herself, before she folds herself into the seat in front of him. He pulls his book closer to him, pressing his back into the back of his seat like he can disappear into it.

“Jason,” she begins delicately. “You know, if there is anything going on at home that’s worrying you, there are plenty of people available in school. I am here…” A snort escapes him before he can stop himself. He should be mortified and probably should also apologise, but the idea of having a heart to heart with Ms Murphy is too funny for him not to react. She raises an eyebrow at him, but composes herself, clasping her hands together and he wonders briefly how much she’d like to beat him. “Or we do have a school counsellor if you need to talk to someone.”

“Good to know,” he mumbles in response, looking away from her. She doesn’t leave, either not taking the hint or not knowing what to do, so he decides to help her along by lifting up his book and making a show of reading it.

“Montgomery? Anne of Green Gables?” she reads. “That’s a lovely book, Jason.”

“I’ve read it before,” he tells her, not lifting his eyes from the page. “It’s better the second time around.”

“You have a nice taste in books,” she remarks. “Anything else you like reading?” He hesitates before answering, but frankly, no one has ever asked him about what he likes reading before and he’s kept all his thoughts locked up and they’re begging to be let out.

“A lot,” he confesses. “Old Victorian stuff. Classic myths. I like all those old monster books. And plays. I started reading MacBeth last week.”

“Macbeth?” she echoes. “You have an advanced taste in books, Jason.”

He smirks. Of course he does. He lives a pretty adult life, why shouldn’t he read more grown up books?

Students begin filtering in after a few minutes. Betty Finn nods in his general direction before sitting at her desk with her gaggle of friends. The Heathers almost float in. They sit at their desks like they’re in their own bedrooms, not once breaking their conversation. Kurt and Ram bounce in, punching one another and laughing too loud for anyone’s liking.

Veronica comes in at around 7:45 and he sits up immediately. She snakes her way past people, mumbling apologies when someone has to move a chair for her. She meets his eyes just before she reaches his desk and manages an awkward smile.

“Hi,” she greets.

“Hey,” he replies, hurrying to stand up from his chair. She adjusts the rainbow coloured scarf around her neck with a chuckle. “Um, how was your weekend?”

“Fine,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean I didn’t do much, I just… you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, I left my jacket at your place on Friday,” she says.

“Yeah, I have it here.” He gets down on his knee and pulls it out of the bag, taking longer than he would have liked with it getting stuck behind books. He feels her shift nervously behind her and the eyes of the class on them and he yanks it out and hands it to her.

“Thanks,” she says, folding it over her arm. “I uh, yeah… I really like this jacket.”

“Cool,” he says, pressing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking at the floor. He waits for her to walk away from him and over to her normal friends who have normal parents, but instead she stays with him, toying with the fabric of her jacket.

“So uh… I know it’s short notice but if you’re not doing anything after school, do you want to work on the project? We can go to the library.”

“Really?” he asks, smiling. She smiles back and he feels his hands get sweaty. He wipes them quickly on his jeans. He mentally tells himself to calm down, that no one gets this excited about working on a project after school. “I mean, yeah I’m not busy. That sounds… that would be cool.”

“Cool,” she says, biting her lip. She pauses before going to sit down, but she still smiles at him before she starts talking to Martha.

He exhales as he sits down. He shouldn’t be so happy at something so banal, but he is, because it means Veronica hasn’t gone running for the hills after meeting his dad. Maybe it means this school will be different, and he can have real friends who don’t care that his dad is a weirdo and that his house is straight out of a horror flick and that he cooks his own dinner. Or maybe that last part even impresses her. He can’t even remind himself that all of this is only temporary, because if it is, it’ll at least create some sweet memories down the road.

                                                                                                *****

The next week, JD walks home from school later than usual, having stayed behind again to work on the project. As ridiculous as it sounds, he’s secretly glad this project is happening, because it’s the only time he gets to spend alone with Veronica. He has lunch, but she sits with Martha and Betty at lunch and he’s not sure about them yet. Martha seems okay, hell, she’s the one who wanted to start talking to him that first day, but the vibe he gets from Betty isn’t exactly welcoming. Like she’d tolerate him there but frankly, she’d rather he sit somewhere else. He doesn’t think she necessarily dislikes him, just that she’s not sure there’s more room for him in their little posse, and he can admit he can be more than a little off-putting.

When he’s not sitting at the end of their or another table, he normally eats his lunch under the bleachers, if he remembered to make one. If not, he just sits and reads his book because there’s no way he’ll eat the cafeteria food. There has to be eat least six different types of food poisoning in those.

He trots up the porch steps and enters the house with a liquorice from the small candy store en route to his house dangling from his mouth. Sometimes he likes to pretend it’s a cigarette, just for a little giggle. He copies the expert way his dad can blow smoke rings and talk with one in his mouth.

“I’m home!” he calls out. He had thought his dad would be asleep now, but the light’s on in the kitchen. “I’m going upstairs.”

“Jason?” an unfamiliar voice asks from the kitchen just as he starts claiming the stairs. “Is that him?” His skin prickles at it. It’s a woman, much older than him. Why the heck would his dad have a woman round? It doesn’t take him long to come to the most obvious conclusion and he starts shaking with rage. How dare he. His mom isn’t even gone three years and he’s just moving on.

He wonders what he should do. Run in there and confront him, screaming and crying? Tell his new woman about what happened to his mom and how it was all his ass of a father’s fault? He considers the option ‘run upstairs and shut himself in his room’, but then he comes across a better one that doesn’t involve him being in the house at all.

He sprints up to his room, hearing the kitchen door creaking open behind him, and dumps his backpack on the bed. He pulls out a five dollar bill from his sock drawer, earned after he had volunteered to mow some old man’s lawn on at Sunday morning. That’s probably the best part about the candy store he passes on his way back from school; old people love advertising jobs in the windows and don’t care about hiring kids.

He pauses at the top of the stairs and hears adults still talking inside the kitchen. He takes care going down the stairs, not yet knowing where the creaky ones are, keeping his eyes focussed on the door. All he needs to do is get out of there and then he can run as fast as he can to the 7/11. His head is buzzing now, too many things overlapping at once, past memories with present grief and anger. God he needs that slushie right now.

“Jason?” the woman asks. He stops dead in his tracks, near the bottom. He counts the stairs between himself and the door. Five. All he had to make was five steps. “Jason?” She comes closer to him. He sees out of the corner of his eye that she has dark hair and is wearing a pantsuit, but he doesn’t look any more than that. “Jason, my name’s Katherine. We’re not here to hurt you. Is it okay if we ask you a few questions?”

We?

He turns more, looking past her and into the kitchen. His dad is sitting at the table with another man in a suit. He doesn’t know a lot about adult dating, but he knows that it normally doesn’t involve taking someone with you to your new boyfriend’s house. He looks back at the woman, Katherine. She’s smiling at him, wearing pink lipstick, maintaining a distance from him. There’s warmth in her eyes and it makes him take a step back.

“Why?” he asks after a while.

“There’s just some things we want to know,” she explains. “About your dad.”

“Are you cops?” he asks flatly. He won’t lie; the idea of his dad being jailed makes him pretty happy. But he doesn’t know if he can trust cops. He had some experience with them after his mom died and they weren’t pleasant people.

“No, we’re not cops, Jason,” she answers. “But we would like to talk to you. We can talk in your room if that’s more comfortable for you?”

He looks over to the door and back to the kitchen. He won’t be able to make it to the door, he knows that. And he’s pretty sure he it’s not legal to run away from a cop. Or whatever she is.

“Okay,” he says. “We can talk in my room.”

                                                                                                *****

In homeroom, Veronica and JD look over their presentation notes one last time. She’s organised what they’ll talk about into flashcards and they have carefully drawn out diagrams and visual clues. They’ve stayed behind in the library every day working on it and this is finally the day they do this presentation. Still, even with all the work they’ve put into it, Veronica feels her hands getting sweaty just thinking about it. As nervous as she is, JD must be more so. His hair is messy and he makes his worse by running his hand through it every five minutes, and his nails are nearly chewed down to the skin. She didn’t see him as the type to get nervous. But right now, he’s covering his mouth with his hand, barely responding to her questions.

“JD?” she asks. “JD!”

“Woah, yeah, yeah,” he says, snapping out of whatever he was thinking about. “Sorry, I um…”

“Nervous?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he answers.

“Me too.” He looks up at her, seeming to forget about himself for a second. He hesitates for a moment and takes her hand. She jumps at the contact, but she’s glad when he doesn’t let go.

“Don’t be,” he tells her. “I’ll be up there with you, remember?” She nods, feeling her nerves start to slip away at his touch. She swings their arms playfully.

“I’ll be with you, too,” she reminds him. “I guess we just… keep looking at each other.” He nods with a smile, squeezing her hand gently.

“Hey, you two, get a room!” Heather Chandler calls from her seat. Duke makes kissing faces behind her and MacNamara draws hearts in the air.

“Hey, Jason’s getting some!” Ram calls.

“Hey, tell us what her bra size is!” Kurt adds, cackling. Veronica flinches and drops JD’s hand to pull her jacket tighter around her. The comfort on JD’s face melts away, replaced by something she can only describe as rage. He begins storming towards them and she doesn’t stop him. Ram and Kurt keep up the confident appearance, but once he comes over to them, they seem to remember what went down with them in the cafeteria on his first day. “Hey, look, we were just kidding.”

“I’d like to hope so,” he says. “Now, apologise to Veronica.”

“We’re-we’re sorry,” Ram mumbles.

“Veronica’s over there,” he tells them. He points over to where she is and she feels her cheeks flush red. Part of her loves this, him standing up for her, but she also wishes he’d stop so that everyone else would stop looking at her.

“JD,” she calls. “It’s okay.” JD turns to look at her, silently asking if she’s sure about this. “It’s fine.” He clenches his fists and turns back to them.

“Don’t talk about her like that again,” he whispers menacingly. Despite her embarrassment, she feels a rush of excitement as he comes back over to her. People start speaking in their little groups again and Kurt and Ram look at each other with wide eyes. She can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, but she does hear the high pitched voices. She knows she shouldn’t feel this way, and part of her does feel bad about it, but she can’t lie to herself; she really likes the idea of not having to deal with Kurt and Ram until they mature more.

“Thanks for protecting me,” she tells him. Her hand finds his again and no one reacts. She feels like he’s carrying her away from all of that nonsense of middle school; away from stupid jocks and shallow mean girls.

“Any time,” he replies, running his thumb along the back of her hand. She looks down at the table, with their notes till open on it. Unfortunately, the one thing he apparently can’t protect her from is actual schoolwork. There’s something about his face, the faraway look in his eyes, the turned down corners of his mouth, all of it tears at Veronica’s young heart.

“Are you okay?” she asks, swinging their joined hands gently back and forth. The movement makes him smile, at least.

“Yeah,” he lies. She steps closer to him, shaking her head softly. He bows his head and bits his lip. “It’s nothing.” He looks around nervously at the rest of the class and pulled her even closer, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “Some people came round to my house yesterday. They were asking me stuff about my dad.”

“About your dad?” she asks. He nods and she frowns, her mouth opening and closing. “Wow… do you know why?”

“No,” he admits. “They’re not cops, but I’m not sure what they’re doing.” His brown eyes are wide and he holds her hand tighter as his shoulders hunch. She wants to tell him everything will be okay, or give him an answer, but she can’t even think of one. She nods and rubs her thumb along the back of his hand. She remembers the brief interaction she had with his dad and how uncomfortable it was. No offence to him, but he really didn’t seem like a nice guy. But a criminal?

“It’ll be okay,” she says after a while, her tone soft. She knows he isn’t convinced but he smiles at her. He doesn’t let go of her hand until Mrs Murphy tells them to go to their seats.

                                                                                                *****

That Friday, Veronica lounges on the sofa, flicking through TV channels, looking for a good movie, her shoes kicked off.

“Ronnie, help me set the table for dinner?” her mom asks from the kitchen, and she does so. When there’s a knock at the door, she stops, but she hears it open and assumes her dad got it.

“Veronica?” he calls from the hallway. “It’s your friend from school…. JD.”

“JD?” she mutters to herself. Her mom excuses her from the table and she goes to the door. JD stands in the frame, his hands in his pockets, glancing nervously at her dad. He looks so much smaller than normal, the doorframe seeming to dwarf him. It’s not that she’s not happy to see him, quite the opposite, the butterflies in her stomach start going crazy, but it’s unusual to say the least. She wasn’t even sure he knew where she lived.

“Hi,” she greets.

“Hey,” he replies, chewing his lip nervously. “Look I hope I’m not interrupting anything but… Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Um, can I, Dad?” she asks. Her dad sighs, but he’s smiling.

“We’ll keep your dinner for you. Take your jacket with you and don’t stay out past 7.”

“Thanks!” She turns back to JD, who is still hunched over, looking uncomfortable. “Come on in, I just need to grab my jacket.”

“And shoes,” he tells her, looking down at her sock-clad feet. She follows his gaze and giggles.

“Yeah shoes would be good too.”

JD follows her into the house, scurrying uncharacteristically behind her like a shadow, especially when they go into the kitchen and her parents are there.

“This is JD,” she introduces when her mom looks at him. “He’s a friend from school. We’re just going out.”

“Sure,” her mom says, nodding, her smile a bit too wide. “How are you, JD?”

“Fine,” he replies in a tight voice.

“You know, you’re welcome to stay for dinner if you want,” her mom says. “As usual I’ve made far too much so there’s plenty to go around.” Veronica looks over at JD as she’s lacing up her boots. The idea of him sitting at her table with her makes her cheeks go pink.

“Thanks for the offer but um, I already ate before I left,” he says. “But thanks, Mrs Sawyer.” Her mom nods, but she keeps her eyes on him while he waits for Veronica. She whispers something to her dad, something Veronica and she assumes JD can’t hear, but it makes his shoulders tense.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Veronica says, pulling on her denim jacket. “Let’s go. See you guys later.”

“Home before 7!” her dad reminds her. “And don’t go too far!” She shakes her head and looks apologetically at JD.

“God they’re so over protective,” she sighs as she opens the front door. “Like I need reminded to be home by 7.” She kicks the ground with the toe of her boot. “I’m not a kid.”

“I think it’s nice,” he says, shrugging. He drags his feet slightly as he walks, his hand slipping out f his pocket and brushing against hers. She takes a deep breath and decides to hold his hand. He smiles despite the sadness in his eyes.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“I don’t know…” he says quietly. “The park?”

“Sure.”

The walk to the park is filled with soft, easy conversation, mostly about nonsense and things that don’t really matter, but it fills the time and distracts Veronica from how tight JD’s shoulders are, how his eyes never quiet meet hers.

The park is pretty empty when they get there, save a mom and toddler on the baby swing and a few 8 year olds on the climbing frame. They wander over to the roundabout and she jumps on while he stands beside it, moving it gently from side to side, taking slow, deep breaths.

“Veronica, I…” he begins. “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” she asks. She grabs the cold metal bar to stop her hands from shaking. “Is it about the thing with your dad?”

“Sort of,” he admits. His voice sounds thick, like he’s trying so hard not to cry. “Veronica… I’m leaving.”

She feels like someone punched her in the stomach and knocked all the wind out of her. She hadn’t even had time to imagine the worst scenario, yet this felt like it was it.

“Your dad?” she asks softly. “He’s moving you away again.”

“Not my dad this time,” he sniffles. He wipes his hand quickly across his face and she’s not sure if he was crying or not. “I don’t know a lot… Those people who were in my house said I can’t live with my dad any more. That my dad has to go to court and I’m supposed to go stay with some lady I’ve never met!” His voice gets faster, higher, more frantic. His hand comes over hers on the bar and he squeezes so tightly it hurts, but she doesn’t care. “I’ve packed all my stuff and I’m meant to be gone tomorrow morning. I ran out while they weren’t watching.” He looks up at her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I just really wanted to see you before I left.”

She doesn’t know what to say. She wants to tell him that he can’t leave, not in the middle of the semester, but clearly he can. She wants to beg him to stay or ask him to run away with her. Maybe she could hide him in her room, but they’d find him eventually. Or her mom would come up to get her laundry and find him hiding in her closet.

“Being a kid sucks,” she sighs. “Adults just take you wherever they want. You don’t get a say in it.”

“I know,” he says bitterly. He climbs up onto the roundabout with her, their legs brushing against each other, and puts a hand on her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. “I guess, before I left, I just wanted to say thanks. For being my friend.”

“Of course,” she replies. Not being able to find the words, she pulls him into a tight hug, tears wetting the back of his jacket. “Thanks for being mine.” His arms tighten around her and she feels him shaking. She rubs her cheek on his shoulder.

“Imagine if we ran away,” he whispers.

“Where would we go?” she asks playfully. He shrugs against her, beginning to rock her back and forth.

“Seattle?” he suggests softly. “I hear it’s really cool.”

“We could break into an apartment,” she says back. “Make it our own.”

“I could cook,” he adds. Veronica isn’t sure how she’d feel about living off pasta for the rest of her life, but she plays along for now.

They pull apart from the hug, their faces both sticky with tears.

“I’m really going to miss you,” he tells her. She nods, clutching his right hand with both of hers and his left grabs her waist. “You’re the first friend I’ve had in… forever.” His hand lets go of her waist and cups her cheek.

She isn’t sure who moves in first, but suddenly his lips are on hers. Martha still talks about her first kiss with Ram on the kickball field and Veronica wonders briefly if she’ll still remember her first kiss in six, seven years. Her first kiss being JD.

She’s thought about what it would feel like, watched it on TV, seen her mom and dad give each other quick kisses. JD’s soft and gentle with her and it feels good but also sadder than she thought her first kiss would be. Her heart is racing, her toes curling as the butterflies start settling, leaving only warmth inside her.

He pulls away almost as soon as he started. Somehow, her hands ended up on his shoulders. His face is red.

“Um, I,” he stammers. “I’ve sort of wanted to do that for a while.”

“Me too,” she confesses. They smile and she briefly forgets about everything else, why they were in the park in the first place.

“Jason?” a woman calls, the anger in her voice poorly disguised under the concern. Veronica looks over his shoulder and sees a dark-haired woman in a suit entering the park and running towards them. “Jason, oh God. Please, please don’t run off like that.”

“I just wanted to say goodbye to my friend!”  he spits. She looks at Veronica as if she’s just seeing her for the first time and her face softens.

“Jason, if you wanted to do that, you could have asked. We would have let you see her before we leave.”

Veronica wants to ask the woman exactly why she’s taking JD and when he’s allowed to come back and why exactly they can’t stay here, but the words die on her tongue when she sees her steely eyes. Instead she holds him tighter like she can keep him here just by willing it so. JD doesn’t meet the woman’s eyes, but Veronica can tell by the scowl that he doesn’t believe her.

“I guess I should be going now,” he says bitterly. He jumps down from the roundabout and gives her a hand down too. The woman sighs, her face going soft at the sight of them.

“Why don’t we give your little friend here a ride home?” she asks. “We’ve been all over looking for you, we can manage one more trip.”

The woman’s silver car pulls up outside of Veronica’s house way too soon. The car is far cleaner than Veronica expected it to be; her own parent’s car is littered with magazines and empty soda cans and shopping bags.

She looks back at JD. Their hands are still joined and sit in his lap.

“I guess this is goodbye,” he says.

“No,” she replies. “Not forever, right?”

“Right,” he says with a weak smile. “Just… See you later?”

“Yeah. See you later.” She pulls him into another tight hug. She hopes she still remembers how he hugs her in six years. “We should have run to Seattle,” she whispers, so the woman in the front can’t hear it. He laughs against her.

“We really should have,” he agrees. In the rear mirror, the woman looks at them and she knows what it means.

“See you later, JD,” she says again, her voice breaking. Her eyes burn with tears.

“Until we meet again,” he agrees, smirking slightly. “Veronica Veronica Sawyer.” She laughs before climbing out of the car, her hand and arm shaking as holds the door. If she doesn’t close the door he doesn’t leave. “I’ll write to you. As soon as I can, I’ll write.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“We should get going,” the woman says gently. “You can see your friend again soon, Jason.” JD looks from the woman to Veronica one last time, looking at her so intensely it’s like he’s trying to remember her. She closes the car door slowly and steps back. She keeps looking at him through the window as the car starts up and begins to pull away from the sidewalk.

“Goodbye, JD,” she whispers as the car disappears down the road.

When she goes into homeroom on Monday, his desk is empty.

                                                                                               *****

A month later, a letter arrives for Veronica on a Saturday morning, her name typed onto the envelope. They’ve even called her ‘Miss Veronica Sawyer’. Her dad jokes it’s her Harvard acceptance letter and she laughs along with him, until she opens it.

Inside, the letter is written in blue pen in handwriting she knows from a school project. Knowing she can’t read this in front of her parents, she excuses herself from the breakfast table and heads upstairs.

_‘Dear Veronica,_

_I’m sorry it took so long to write, but this is the first time I’ve had a minute. You wouldn’t believe the month I’ve had._

_First part, I had to go to court. Well, I didn’t, my dad did. But I had to go to the courthouse and talk about him. I got asked a lot of questions about him. And my mom. I hated it. But I told them everything and I guess I said the right thing. Or the wrong things. Basically, it ended up with my dad going to jail. I wasn’t there when they decided it, but that woman-you know the one you met?-she came and told me. Her name’s Anna. Basically, she said my dad can’t look after me. So I got put into another home. The kind with a capital H. It’s this old couple, and I don’t have to call them Mom and Dad, just Kerri and George, which is fine, and six other kids._

_It’s Hell, Ronnie. The kids are all torture. Two of them are these little six year olds who keep screaming all the time and asking me if I want to play house with them, then there’s two who are like nine or ten and they keep trying to hang out with me and one who’s my age but she’s pretty boring. I mean, she’s okay in that she’s not a jerk but we don’t talk a lot. The one who’s sixteen and doesn’t want us to even look at her._

_I’ve asked Anna how she knew about my dad. She said someone from school called them and said they worried about me. Though I don’t know how they knew about my dad, but that’s another mystery. Maybe you can work that one out for me._

_I wish you were here. My new school’s weird. It has Heathers, but they’re called Alice, Jade and Rebecca. Alice even wears red all the time. Like Heather Chandler up and moved all the way across the state to torture me. And there are these two boys who are so obnoxious they make me miss Kurt and Ram._

_I miss you more than anyone. I eat lunch in the library most of the time. I’d rather be at Westerberg eating with you. There’s no one like you at this whole school, Veronica. No one as funny as you or as nice as you. I think if you were here, I wouldn’t be losing my mind over here._

_I keep asking when I get to go back to Sherwood and they keep telling me they’re not sure yet. Apparently I need to stay with Kerri and George a bit longer. I ask Anna every time I see her and she tells me the same thing too. That I should try to make friends at my new school. No thanks._

_Don’t worry, I’ll think of something and get out of here. Then you and me can run up to Seattle and pretend none of this ever happened._

_JD._

She writes back to him that night, filling him in on every detail she can think of about what he’s missed the past month, from the tiniest, most insignificant details like the new milk cartons in the cafeteria, to the latest classroom drama involving a clash between Heather Duke and Heather Chandler that nearly splintered their little friendship group, to her own life, her grade on her math test and a book she started reading and her and Martha’s sleepover at her place last weekend. She tells him how much she misses him, how homeroom and lunch aren’t the same without him. She tells him that she misses him smiling at her across the room and his jokes and him holding her hand, but she scribbles it out quickly. She crumples the whole page up and writes it out again, hating how awkward and formal she sounds on paper. She ends the letter saying she hopes that he’s happy.

She posts it the next day, and waits every day for a reply, sorting through the mail before her dad can get anywhere near it. Every day she wakes up thinking that this is the day she gets a letter back from him, some days the feeling is stronger than others, and every day there’s nothing for her. It takes her two months before she stops getting up early to check the mail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's how it ends. Veronica and JD go their separate ways and never see each other again.  
> I'm totally joking. They will see each other again.....


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a long boy. These kids just kept running and dragged me with them.  
> Also, the beginning of this chapter is set right after Candy Store.

_September 23 rd, 1989._

_Dear Diary,_

_I am the worst person on this planet._

Left alone in the middle of the cafeteria, Veronica looks up at the Heathers, strolling off with their chins in the air like royalty. That’s what they are, of course. People even move aside for them in the halls. The kind of royalty that beheads anyone who disagrees with them. She looks over her shoulder at Martha, who is sitting at her table, the forged note in her hand. In all the time Veronica’s known her, she’s not sure she’s ever seen Martha smile like that. Sort of breathless excitement, like she’s just stepped into fairyland. She’s practically glowing for God’s sake. Like she’s floating on air.

She’s going to hit the ground hard.

Or maybe she won’t. Martha’s not into parties. Even when they have sleepovers, she passes out just after 11. She’s told Veronica over and over that she thinks the idea of going to one of those parties is terrifying. She’d so much prefer a night at home with a book or movie. Plus, there’ll be way too many people there, most she doesn’t even know, or like, despite Martha’s insistence that she likes everyone in their grade. And she doesn’t drink and the alcohol will be flowing. There’s no way she’ll even show up to this dumb party. Not even for Ram Sweeney.

Who is she kidding?

_The absolute worst. I just threw my best friend (former best friend?) under the bus for a ticket to Heather Chandler’s dumb candy store._

“You shouldn’t have bowed down to the swash dogs and Diet Coke heads,” someone says behind her and it takes her a moment to realise they’re talking to her. “They’re going to crush that girl.”

She turns around to confront the voice, except all sarcastic remarks are gone because what can she say to something like that? It doesn’t take long to work out who it was, there’s not a lot of people around and there’s only one person who isn’t moving around. Everyone is looking at her-ever since she became a Heather, she’s had everyone’s eyes on her, but only one person isn’t looking at her. He must be new here because she’s never seen him, dark curly hair, long legs with one knee bent and his arm resting on it, sitting against the wall with a book on his bent leg, wearing a long black coat and a satisfied little smirk. His eyes are on his book, but there’s a gleam in them that tells her he’s proud of his little assessment.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asks. In other circumstances, she’d at least try to sound smarter, but she’s hardly in the mood. His eyes flicker up to her and he gets up, keeping his page with his finger. He hesitates before coming over to her.

A feeling of déjà vu comes over Veronica; she finds herself scanning his face, trying to work out where she recognises him. Is it possible there was someone else in their grade this whole time and she simply didn’t notice in all 17 years she’s lived here?

“Clearly, you’ve got a soul,” he tells her, and she’s confused at the shakiness in his voice, how his smile keeps faltering. “You just got to work harder on keeping it clean.” He takes in a breath, his fingers tightening on the book. “You know, the Veronica Sawyer I knew wouldn’t bow down to those three. But I guess we’re all born marked for evil.”

The Baudelaire quote catches her off-guard, almost making her forget what else he said. She won’t lie, she is impressed by it. He turns away from her, opening his book again and she chases him before he can get away from her. 

“The Veronica Sawyer you knew?” she echoes just before he can get any further. He turns back to her, his expression a little more open. “I’m sorry have we-”

All the puzzle pieces click into her mind, taking her back to 1984. Brown eyes, curly hair that used to be a little more tame, a crooked smile and dimples, chewed nails, books sitting on a shelf in a near-empty house that he could quote at any point he liked. And a kiss in a playground.

“JD?” she whispers in disbelief.  He holds his arms out, laughing slightly.

“In the flesh,” he confirms. He comes closer towards her. She’s not entirely sure what she’s feeling, other than shock. She hasn’t seen this boy since she was twelve years old. As time went on, she had started to miss him less and less. She moved on, growing tired of waiting for a letter from him. She didn’t forget him, just let him live in the back of her mind, only coming out whenever she was in the playground or read Wuthering Heights, and occasionally when she cooked pasta for herself. Sometimes she had let herself daydream about what they would have done if he hadn’t left.

Now it seems the daydream is real.

“You’re back,” she states dumbly.

“Yeah, I am,” he says.

“How are you back?” she asks, half laughing. He laughs back without a hint of sarcasm.

“That’s a long story,” he tells her. He looks her up and down, taking in her new outfit, how different it was from how she dressed when she was twelve. “You grew up pretty.”

“Yeah,” she says, looking down at herself. Blue blazer and grey miniskirt. Heather Chandler had taken the liberty of taking her out on a shopping spree. Well, she said shopping spree. What really happened was she handed Veronica clothes and told her she was getting them. It’s not that she didn’t like them, though. They really did make her feel beautiful and she got used to them. She just sometimes thinks she looks too much like a Heather, not a Veronica. “Um, well, you know how it is.”

“Oh yeah, fashion’s been real high on my priority list,” he says, gesturing to his grey t-shirt and black jeans and black trench coat, making her bite her lip to hold back her giggle. “That’s not all that’s changed, I see. You’re with the Heathers now.” Her smile drops at the accusatory tone he uses, like it’s a bad thing. Like he gets to judge who she’s friends with. Well, he might not be wrong, but the point still stands.

“Yeah, I am,” she says. “It’s uh, a kind of recent thing.” She scratches nervously behind her ear. “You know, stuff happens.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, his tongue darting out of the corner of his mouth. “I understand. Five years is a while.”

“Yeah, it is,” she sighs.

“You know, maybe if you’re free sometime, you could fill me in on everything I’ve missed?” he asks. He doesn’t meet her eyes, but he takes a hesitant breath. She thinks over what he said. Everything he missed since the way he left, the day he kissed her. “Too forward?” She realises that she hasn’t given him an answer.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, no not forward. Um, that would be awesome.” She balls her hands up into fists, fighting the urge in her legs to bounce.  “And uh, JD? It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too,” he says. He pauses slightly, chewing his lip, a daring spark in his eye. “Ronnie.”

She hides her blush behind her hair, her smile stretching across her face. Hardly anyone other than her parents calls her that anymore, certainly not the Heathers. She missed how it had made her feel. Or maybe it’s just him saying it anyway.

But the butterflies in her stomach don’t last long. They end up being squashed by two idiots in track jackets who take up either side of JD. JD closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, his entire body seemingly locking. His arms tighten around his book, holding it closely against his chest. He looks almost like a statue, his lips moving slightly, muttering something.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Ram asks, poking JD’s cheek. “What’d your boyfriend say when you told him you were moving to Sherwood, Ohio?”

“Hey, Ram,” Kurt continues. “Doesn’t this cafeteria have a no gays allowed rule?”

“Look…. I don’t want trouble,” he says flatly, not looking at either of them. She frowns, wondering what happened to the boy who took them on in the cafeteria, but she supposes they both grew up. He became a pacifist and she became… a Heather.

“Aw, he doesn’t want trouble,” Ram coos. He yanks at the book in JD’s hands, the one he’s holding like a lifeline. “What you reading?”

Amid the crowd that’s started to gather around the fight, JD’s eyes find Veronica’s. His cheeks are red at the attention, but he smiles, and even though they’re in quite a crowd, she feels certain it’s just for her.

“You know, I’m having the strangest sense of déjà vu right now,” he remarks. Veronica snorts and hides behind her diary.

“Deja what?” Kurt asks. JD rolls his lips into a thin line, his eyes staring straight ahead, but the mask breaks and his lips turn up into a smirk.

“Don’t pay much attention in French class do you?” he replies. He’s still not looking at either one of them, still looking straight ahead, his fingers curling around the edges of his book, but the smirk is still there. “That much hasn’t changed at least.”

Kurt blinks stupidly at him. It’s unlikely he’ll make the connection by just looking at him, and she’s doubtful he’d realise even if JD screamed his name in his face. It’s not like they knew his name when he was here. Kurt’s face twists into a snarl, his hands tightening on JD’s shoulder, and JD winces.

“Hold his arms,” he instructs Ram.

But Ram never gets the chance. JD swings his book across Kurt’s face and turns and does the same to Ram. Kurt takes a swing, but he grabs his arm and kicks him in the leg, sending him toppling to the floor before landing a punch on Ram’s chin.

Veronica can’t deny the rush she feels watching it. Despite being outnumbered, JD retains the upper hand. Clearly, whatever he’s been doing since he left, he must have kept himself in good shape. Or kept getting into fights. It’s like she has some sort of secret shame, but damn if it isn’t intoxicating as hell watching him go on like that, seemingly not stopping to think or plan, one move flowing into the next.

Ram comes up behind and gets the drop on him, pushing him to the ground and towering over him, but JD’s leg comes up right between his, hitting him right in the place he wouldn’t want to be hit. As Ram lets out a high, pained squeal, Veronica doesn’t even bother to hide her laughter. Most of the school are laughing with her. She thinks that she shouldn’t think that this is funny no matter who is getting beat up, but that’s drowned out by the chorus of laughter echoing around her and the sense of justice in seeing these two finally get what’s been coming to them since… well freshman year, definitely. Probably since before that. He probably remembers that episode in the cafeteria on their first day of seventh grade.

She’s changed a lot since then. It even shows on the outside. She’s not the same girl he liked all the way back then. Back then he would have gladly been seen with her. But that girl didn’t sell her friend out for popularity. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to be act proud with her now.

Two teachers, Miss Fleming and Coach Carr, run in to break up the fight. Fleming sorts out Kurt and Ram, checking them over as instructed by Coach Carr, who is pulling JD away from them. He struggles against Carr’s grasp, but as he grabs his chin and starts sternly talking to him, she sees JD begin to calm down; his shoulders stop wriggling and he stops digging his feet into the ground. She sees him let out a breath, his shoulders sagging like someone has knocked the wind out of him. He nods numbly as Carr talks to him, presumably telling him about the consequences of what he’s just done.

Veronica bristles in anger when she sees Fleming being more concerned with whether Kurt and Ram got hurt than punishing them. She thinks briefly that she should run over there and tell her that technically, they started it, and JD was just acting in self-defence, but her feet remain rooted to the ground. Besides, snitches get stitches. And if she stands up for JD, she can kiss everything she has now goodbye. If there’s anything Chandler hates, it’s tattlers. And also, Kurt is Macnamara’s kind of boyfriend, and sort of boyfriends of your friends have a special protection. Even if you’re not really friends with them.

Carr drags JD off like he’s a cop and JD’s a petty criminal, shoving through the crowd, barking at the kids to get to class. When he passes by Veronica, he gives her a smile and a wink, like they’re both in on some joke. Carr shoves his head roughly.

“Get to class, Miss Sawyer,” he tells her as he passes. Veronica turns and watches them go. JD doesn’t resist, in fact he seems to gladly go with him. She can’t see his face, and wonders if the smile was just for her or a façade for the rest of the school. Wonders how he really feels.

“Veronica,” Chandler snarls from behind her, making her jump. She composes herself and turns around. The Heathers all stand with their hands on their hips; Chandler with her eyebrows raised, Mac still giggling slightly, and Duke casting disgusted glances between Mac and Veronica. “Quit your drooling and let’s go. We have free period and I need to copy your English homework.”

“Right behind you,” she says, falling into step with the Heathers.

“And don’t forget,” she says over her shoulder. “We’re meeting at your place before Ram’s party on Friday.”

Veronica gulps. The first time her parents meet the Heathers. More importantly, the first time the Heathers meet her parents and see her house. She’s been to all of their houses, and her house could fit into theirs probably twenty times.

“How could I forget?” she replies when Chandler looks sharply to her, demanding a response.

After free period, she passes the front office on her way to French, and who else but Jason Dean is sitting on the plastic chair outside, scowling at the wall and scratching at his jeans.

“Hey,” she greets. His stony face breaks into a smile when he sees her at least and he pushes his hair out of his eyes.

“Hey,” he says back.

“I take it you’re in trouble?” she asks, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She nods over at the door to the vice principal’s office down the hall; it’s shut. He scrunches up his nose and sticks out his tongue.

“Well we have to wait and see, but that’s very likely,” he says. “We’re just waiting on the adult figure in my life to come.”

“Adult figure?” Veronica asks. He nods, the scratching on his leg getting faster.

“Apparently there needs to be a discussion about my behaviour,” he explains. “Getting into a fight on your second day of classes doesn’t exactly make a good impression.”

“It’s your second day?” she asks, slightly taken aback. “I mean, I didn’t notice you at all yesterday.”

“Apparently this year we’re in a different homeroom,” he explains, shrugging. “But, here, let me see your schedule.” She takes it out of her blazer pocket and he does the same. She moves closer so that she’s leaning against the wall next to him. They put their schedules next to each other’s, hers decorated in blue ink, his crumpled and creased but otherwise pristine.

“There.” She points at third period, Wednesday. His schedule has the same class, teacher and room code. “We have social studies together.” She remembers back in seventh grade, when for three weeks in geography, all she could do was look at the back of JD’s head. Then she sat down and the desk in front of her was empty. When handing back grades for the shared assignment, the teacher had asked if she could take his. She mailed to the address he was at, along with another letter from her, but she never heard back.

Why not? She could ask him that right now, but there’s something between them that she doesn’t want to ruin.

“Then I can’t wait,” he says. She pushes her hair behind her ear as she smiles. She tries to think of something to say, but before she can he sits up straighter in the chair and looks behind her. “And apparently, the adult figure is here.”

Veronica turns to see what he means. Out the window, she sees a woman climbing out of a grey car, a Ford by the look of it, but her knowledge of cars is limited strictly to her dad telling her about them as she watches him fix theirs. She crosses the courtyard in a hurry and comes into the school, her eyes landing on JD immediately. She’s probably just younger than her mother; small frame and dark brown hair held in a low ponytail, wearing an ill-fitting grey jacket and silver-rimmed glasses. She looks kind, but her expression is stern, glaring at JD, who does his best not to squirm, but looks down at the floor and scratches behind his ear.

“O-Okay,” Veronica murmurs, turning back to JD and straightening up. “I’ll see you around, then.”

“Of course,” he says, saluting her lazily with his finger. She manages a weak smile at the woman before walking off down the hall. She strains her ears, hoping to catch some snippet of conversation between then, but all she hears is the door to the vice principal’s office open and shut.

                                                                        ******

Seeing nothing better to do, Veronica sits herself down on the sidewalk. He runs her hands up and down her bare legs, which are being frozen by the chill in the air. It’s cold enough in September in Ohio at a reasonable time, but it’s two am on a Friday night-or Saturday morning. No one with any sense would be outside now, especially not in an outfit such as hers-a short black skirt and white shirt under a flimsy blue blazer. She had even been talked into wearing heels by Heather, and now her reward was blisters on her feet.

She wonders if Heather planned this; getting her to wear heels knowing how painful it would be for her. Regardless, it’s most certainly nothing compared to what she has planned for her on Monday.

The thing is, flying with the eagles has the biggest unforeseen disadvantage; the ground really hurts when they drop you.

Her clock’s ticking now; she’s got thirty hours until Heather, Heather and Heather hunt her down and make a trophy out of her to mount on the walls of her mansion of a house. Maybe Veronica’s head will make a nice centrepiece in her dining room table or sit next to one of the three TVs in her house. They’ll use her limbs for croquet mallets.

She can’t be out of options entirely. Heather had given her the helpful tip of transferring. Maybe if she begged her mom hard enough, she’d send her to another school without question. Or maybe she can just run home, pack a bag, leave a note for her parents and run up to Seattle. Change her name and start running a sweet little coffee shop.

She pushes herself off the sidewalk, the cold biting into her, and it’s worryingly damp. She tries to think, hoping to God it’s rained in the past 24 hours. The only light is coming from the street lights and the only sound she can hear is her breathing and the ringing in her ears. The foul taste of vomit and alcohol lingers in her mouth. Still, the vomiting did a good job of sobering her up. Maybe now she’ll take a vow of sobriety. Heavy drinking is nowhere near as glamorous as people make it out.

She heads down the street with the intention of going home, still thinking about Monday morning with an impending sense of dread. She knows she can’t leave Westerberg; her parents would never let her transfer without a serious talk involving the principal, and that would mean her having to tell everything to her parents and then… well, she’s not sure. She’s not sure anyone’s ever ratted the Heathers out for anything, and if they did, they didn’t live to tell the tale. She can’t run away either; she’s still learning to drive and doesn’t even own a motorbike-

Something catches her eye from across the road; a small silver Ford, parked next to a small, red brick, two storey house. Red front door and tightly shut curtains, the muffled shine of a lamp on in one of the upper rooms. She runs across to the other side and cranes her neck, standing on her toes even in her ridiculous shoes. Behind the curtain, she can see the shadow of someone. It could be anyone, but her gut pulls her towards them. She can only think of one person in Sherwood, Ohio who would be awake at this hour and not at Ram’s party.

Well, there’s an option she likes. Spend these thirty hours getting freaky.

After checking her surroundings, she tiptoes up to the house, positioning herself right under the lit window. Hands shaking, she grabs the trellis and begins pulling herself up, nails scraping against the brick as ivy tickles her nose. She can never get a steady, firm grip on it, fingertips turning red as they grasp at wood, and she prays she doesn’t fall. Not even thinking about how much it would hurt, she can’t think what she’d do when JD runs out and finds her lying with broken bones in his yard.

Soon, she’s able to grab onto the windowsill with one hand and balance herself using her forearm, ripping the window lock off with her free hand. Normally, she would knock but well, she doesn’t have the time right now.

She pushes the window open, pulls herself up onto the windowsill and pulls herself through, the tick fabric of the curtains choking and blinding her before she feels her head and shoulders collide with carpeted floor, the rest of her body following through in a completely ungraceful tumble.

“Veronica?” She lifts her head to see JD in a grey t-shirt and black pyjama pants, sitting on his bed with a book in his hand, looking at her with his eyebrows shooting to the ceiling and his jaw on the floor. She pulls herself to her feet, yanking on her skirt to straighten it. His coat is lying on the floor and he looks different without it, to say the least. Smaller, younger. More vulnerable, although part of that could be due to the fact that she just broke into his house. He throws the book away, nothing bothering to mark his page, and sits on the edge of the bed, looking her up and down with barely any change in his expression. “Wh-what are you doing in my room?”

“Shhh!” she hisses, waving her finger frantically, aware that they definitely were not home alone. She crosses over to him, watching him pinch himself as she does so. He opens his mouth, looking for something to say, but no sound comes out. “Had to see you. The thing is… I kind of have to ride you until I break you.” She can’t not smile as she talks. It’s exciting, and not just because of the ridiculousness of it all. Because it’s him.

“Um… can I ask why?” he says, looking at her up and down, just noticing the outfit and heavy make-up.

“Heather,” she explains as he stands. “She’s going to kill me on Monday morning. I’ve got 30 hours, so I figured I might as well spend them doing something I like.”

“Having sex?”

“You,” she replies firmly. He smiles and caresses her cheek, moving in to kiss her. His touch is gentle and careful and it’s beautiful, but it’s also not what she’s looking for right now. She grabs his shoulders and shoves him to the ground. He gasps, but caresses her legs instead, already panting. His hands go under her skirt and God, it feels good. He kisses the bottom of her thigh, just above her knee, and she sighs.

“Why me?” he asks between kisses. She gets down on her knees with him, clasping her hands behind her neck and looking into his eyes. She could get lost in them. She presses her hand against his chest.

“Because you’re beautiful,” she tells him, honestly. Words start coming out of her mouth without control and she doesn’t know if it’s the late hour and lack of sleep or the impending death sentence, but she doesn’t mind at all. “And I’ve missed you. And the world isn’t fair, but we can pretend that it’s different.” She rips her blazer off and throws it to the side. “What do you think? Help me make this beautiful?”

He licks his lips, his eyes bright as he smiles, his hands running up and down her back.

“That works for me.”

 Veronica learns something surprising that night; and it’s that JD is really, really good at sex. Not that she’d have much to compare him to, or anything really, but damn he’s good at it. He takes it as slowly as she wants (which isn’t slow at all, there’s so much she wants to do to him and only so much time they have together), obeying her every command. When she asks him to slap her, he does, when she says, “pull my hair”, he grabs it and yanks it hard, making it hurt exactly like she wanted it. His hands go wherever she asks, until she doesn’t even need to ask him, he just knows. He kisses her hard, tangling his fingers in her hair as he presses her lips to her lips, her neck, her breast, her stomach, anywhere he can.

She gives as much as she gets from him, peppering his face and chest with kisses, all the way down to his belly button before getting brave and sucking on his neck, hoping she leaves a mark. She remembers all she’s read in books, under her covers at night with a torch. Martha would be absolutely scandalised if she knew that she read them, she’d probably die if she knew what she and JD were doing right now. But those books always gave her the wildest kinds of secret fantasies, things she’d wanted to do with someone she really, really cared about, and who cared about her the same way. But for now, JD would do.

In the back of her mind springs the insane thought that maybe he might be that person who cares for her, but she banishes it. There’s almost no room for such thoughts when JD is looking at her like that, with wide, shining eyes and parted lips and he’s inside her and he is letting her drag her nails down his back while their tongues and teeth clash, him whispering her name like a prayer. There’s no room for anything except the way he feels against her.

She doesn’t think about how anyone else might be in the house. She doesn’t think about how anyone else might be on the damn planet. They might as well be the only two people in existence, and she wouldn’t hate it if that were the case.

“Make this whole town disappear,” she begs in a breathless whisper.

“Okay,” he says, panting. She thinks he’s just responding out of instinct until he looks up at her, eager and willing and smiling. “Okay.”

When they finish, she rolls off him, one leg dangling off the mattress of his single bed. She’s still got her socks and bra on, but that’s it. They’re both breathless, lying in the dark, only the glow of his bedside lamp illuminating part of his face and turning the room dark blue instead of pitch black. His hand finds hers and takes it gently, lifting it against his chest, which rises and falls quickly.

“Wow,” he whispers, and she giggles. “Um… that was… Wow…”

“Am I leaving you speechless?” she asks cheekily. “This has to be a first.” He laughs, low and deep and gorgeous. He plants a chaste kiss on the back of her hand.

“I’m a lot of things right now,” he confesses. After a brief moment of complete silence, she feels him shifting, moving so that his arm is around her. She smiles and gladly plays along, moving until she’s almost on top of him, her head on his shoulder and she can stretch her arms the whole way across his waist and gently kiss his shoulder while she snuggles into him, tiredness overtaking her as the initial adrenaline wears off. “As are you, it seems. Tired being one of them.”

“Long day,” she murmurs into his skin. She feels the thick comfort of the duvet over her shoulders, the pressure of a kiss on the top of her head. As she closes her eyes, he pulls her tighter, continuing to kiss her head. She’s asleep before he turns the lamp off.

                                                                        *****

“Veronica? Veronica!” JD’s concerned, frantic voice grows louder, matching Heather Chandler’s cackling and the chorus of “very” being chanted by her classmates, staring at her with dead eyes behind 3D glasses while Chandler continues laughing at the thought of the whole school knowing about her and JD. His voice cuts above it all.

She opens her eyes, finding him shirtless and sitting across from her, holding her shoulders with concerned eyes, the sunlight filtering in through the open window. Guess she forgot to close it when she came in.

“You’re soaking wet,” he remarks.

“Oh my God,” she mutters. “Oh my God, it was just a dream.” She jumps off the bed with unsteady legs, finding her shoes and underwear on the floor beside her. She slips them on and goes on a hunt for the rest of her clothes, aware of JD still in the bed watching her while she parades around his room practically naked. “Enjoying the show back there?”

“Maybe,” he replies, winking. “Hey, it’s only eight thirty, what’s the rush? Parents expecting you home?”

“No,” she says, shrugging on her shirt, which was crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the bed. Didn’t Duke warn her of the dangers of crumpling a shirt like this? Who cares, it’s done now. “They think I’m at Heather’s. Which is where I need to go now.”

“What?” he asks. “I thought you were done with her.”

“Yeah, that was a sweet fantasy,” she sighs, thinking about it for a minute. “A world without Heather, a world where everyone is free. Now it’s morning and I have to go kiss her arroba sized ass.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she sighs, finding her skirt and blazer next to JD’s side of the bed and pulling them on. “I’m not strong like you are.”

“You think I’m strong?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she confesses. “Of course I do. You don’t care what people think or what they can do to you. I’m different. I bend to those asshole’s wills.” And apparently, she’s okay with hurting people like Martha if those assholes want it. She can’t think what he sees in her, if anything.

“Well, at least let me come with you,” he says, pulling on his t shirt.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You know, for back up.”

“Okay,” she agrees, nothing short of flattered, as he gets out of bed and gets a fresh pair of boxers and jeans before coming back over to her, lifting his coat on the way. “Um, thank you.” She gets up on her toes and kisses him gently, sweetly. Completely different to what she did to him last night, but that was last night. She learned a lot last night. “Um… by the way… you were my first.”

A smiling (if she didn’t know better she’d say smitten) JD takes her hand and leads her into the hallway, which is blue carpet with white walls, decorated with some impressionist paintings, none she recognises except for a Monet one. He presses his finger to his lips and she follows as they sneak down the hall. Veronica gets nervous as they pass a closed door, which JD eyes suspiciously before they run down the stairs and out the front door, letting the door click shut behind them.

It’s a shorter walk than she thought to Heather’s house, but he doesn’t stop holding her hand, even swinging it back and forth to make her giggle. It works, but nothing can stop the dread building in her stomach when they find themselves on the doorstep of Heather’s white, three storey almost-mansion, locked behind double iron gates and a sprawling green lawn, croquet hoops dug tightly into the grass. In the drive, there’s only Heather’s Porsche and Mrs Chandler’s Mini, her dad’s car is gone.

Veronica slips the key Heather gave her into the front door and pushes it open, JD frowning.

“Heather?” Veronica calls out. Nothing but silence.

“You sure someone’s home?” JD asks as their footsteps echo on the wooden floor. She’s pretty sure her whole room could fit in Heather’s hallway.

“Heather skips the Saturday morning trip to Grandma’s even when she’s not hungover,” she replies dryly. She doesn’t want to look at him, doesn’t want him to see her like this, loosing whatever dignity she might have left. “Heather?”

“What?” The response comes form upstairs, a deep, throaty, tired growl, reminding Veronica of the dragons in old kid’s movies she and Martha used to watch.

“It’s Veronica, I’m here to apologise,” she says.

“Hope you brought kneepads, bitch!” she replies, her voice much more alert now. “Fix me a prairie oyster and I’ll think about it.”

“Prairie oyster, what’s in that?” Veronica asks, leading JD into Heather’s kitchen. Much like everything in Heather’s house, it’s far bigger than hers, white walls and black tiled floors and light brown wooden cabinets. She thinks her earliest days with the Heathers, when Chandler made her try vodka (which was vile) while Mac told her all the hangover cures she knew just in case she needed them. “Um, raw eggs, vinegar…”

“Hot sauce, Worchester, salt and pepper,” JD finishes, taking them out of their various cabinets and setting them out on the counter.

“You know your hangover cures,” she says, impressed.

“My dad trained me well,” he answers, smiling despite the bitter edge in his voice. Veronica looks at him, the strain in his shoulders and clench of his jaw. She remembers his dad, of course, he’s not someone you’d easily forget. She also remembers how JD practically threw her out of the house whenever his dad came home. She wonders if he’s still in the picture. She feels bad, but she really hopes he isn’t.

“Okay, here’s my revenge,” she says, trying to distract him (and because it’s a good plan). “I’ll drop phlegm globber in her prairie oyster, she’ll never know.” He watches her, trying and failing not to laugh as she tries to get enough phlegm in her mouth. “Okay, hang on it’s coming.” She spits into the mug, watching it disappear into the rest of it. She laughs triumphantly, placing the mug back on the counter while JD keeps looking in the cupboards.

“Well that was adorable,” JD says, raising an eyebrow. “But you know… we do have another option.” He lifts a bottle out of the cupboard and turns it towards her. “I do prefer no rust build up to phlegm.”

“Oh, okay,” she says sarcastically. “Don’t be a dick, that would kill her.”

She says it completely casually, but JD changes entirely. He looks down at the bottle in his hand, silent. His eyes are vacant and it scares her.

“JD?” she asks, stepping closer to him. “J?” She grabs his shoulder, the emptiness in his eyes making her gut churn. “JD?” He snaps back to her suddenly, shaking his head, banishing whatever bad thoughts were in there before.

“I’m okay,” he says, taking hold of her arm. “I’m sorry, Veronica, I just…” She tilts his chin, making him look in her eyes. She can’t know what’s going on in his mind, but she knows he’s scared, or freaked out at least. But she sees clarity and security creep back into his eyes as he keeps looking at her. “I’m sorry.”

He kisses her, his lips feeling desperate against hers. She doesn’t complain, because oh God, is a good kisser. She smiles against his lips, kissing him back with just as much strength, hoping to make him forget whatever was scaring him. She winds her arms around his shoulders as he pulls her closer by her waist. She tilts her head to deepen it, letting her mind wander from… well, whatever she was meant to be doing right now, she can’t exactly recall. This is much more enjoyable.

“Prairie oyster, chop chop!”

Oh, right, she thinks as she pulls away from him with a sigh. That’s what she’s here for. She grabs the mug and walks up to Heather’s bedroom, remembering from the two times she’s been here before; once after Heather took her out on a shopping spree and once to watch a movie with the Heathers, Kurt and Ram.

“Good luck,” JD says softly in her ear. She reaches behind with her free hand and squeezes his hand.

“Heather?” she asks, knocking on the door.

“Open it,” she growls from inside. So she’s extra-bitchy today.

Ever since she first saw it, Veronica has been in awe of Heather’s bedroom. Soft white carpeting she would have laid on all day if she could, a four-poster bed with probably at least ten pillows, a TV, walk in closet. She was like the Barbie dolls she used to play with, and all her thousands of accessories. The first time, Heather had played nice, let her check out her jewellery, shoes, jackets, sit on her bed and even tried to show her how to style her hair properly with the 101 products she has in the bathroom attached to her room.

Being in Heather’s room made her feel amazing, like the popular girl she now was, but every time she left, her own house always felt smaller, her own bedroom feel messier and shabbier and just, well, worse. A reminder that she can dress like them, go to their parties, talk like them, play croquet with them, but she’ll never really be one of them.

Heather herself is sitting half propped up with her many pillows, eyes half open, looking at the pair of them with disdain as they approach her.

“Ah, Veronica,” she greets, her voice sickly sweet. The false smile drops when she sees JD. Apparently he’s not even worthy of fake politeness. “And Jesse James, quelle surprise. Well, let’s get to it. Beg.” She kicks off the sheets and swings her legs on the side of her bed, revealing the red silk robe she was wearing, her hair tied back with her ever-present red scrunchie.

“Look, Heather I think last night we both said a lot of stuff we didn’t mean,” she begins.

“I’d actually prefer you did this on your knees,” Heather interrupts. “In front of your boy-toy here.”

“Yeah.” She looks back briefly at JD, who has his hands stuck in the pocket of his trench coat, his jaw clenched in anger, and turns back to Heather. “Anyway, I’m really sorry-”

She throws her head back and laughs, eerily similar to her nightmare. She can only hope that this is a nightmare and she’ll wake up back in JD’s arms, in his bed.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” she asks, snapping her fingers. “Down!”

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and gets down on her knees. She won’t cry, no matter how much she wants to. JD turns his head away.

“Nice,” Heather says, getting up and leaning in close to her face, so much that Veronica can still see last night’s make up. “But you’re still dead to me.” She takes the mug from her hands and takes a swing from it, gagging. “You can’t even make a prairie oyster right? Get out of here. And take your boy with you. And try not to vomit on him.” She looks past Veronica, batting her eyes at JD in the way she’d seen her do to almost every boy she deemed worthy. She is almost certain that the only reason she deems JD ‘worthy’ is because he’s Veronica’s. “And when you tire of her, you know where to find me.”

JD doesn’t say anything, but his face is thunderous as he leads Veronica out of the room, wrapping his arm around her waist. She doesn’t have any shame in burying her face in his chest and clinging to his coat as they walk.

“Are you okay?” he asks once they’re safely out of Heather’s house.

“Fine,” she lies, pulling out of his embrace and settling for holding his hand instead. She’s anything but fine, but she won’t say that to him.

“I know,” he says, stopping their walk to pull her closer, resting his hands on her waist. “What about I take you back to mine and you let me make you breakfast?” Now that he mentions it, she realises she is hungry, and being with him sounds miles better than sitting at home alone trying to do homework. “I don’t mean to brag, but I make a mean French toast.”

“You had me at French toast,” she replies. “And hey, is it cool if I use your phone to call my parents? They’ll probably be wondering where I am and my dad thinks he needs to get me from Heather’s.”

“Of course,” he says, putting his arm around her shoulders and squeezing gently.

When they get back to JD’s house, she’s almost forgotten all about Heather, when she’s laughing with him and he’s swinging their joined hands. She told him to make their town disappear, maybe this was how he was doing it.

There’s a light on in the kitchen window when they arrive, but he doesn’t seem to be surprised about it. He mutters something under his breath, she’s most certain it’s “shit”, but he knocks on the door after checking his empty pocket for a key.

“Hey, it’s me!” he calls to whoever is in the house. “I left my key in my room!”

The door is opened by the same woman who met him at school earlier in the week; this time wearing a pink knitted sweater and jeans, coffee mug in her hand, her hair in a messy bun, still with the glasses perched on her nose. At first, she looks ready to murder JD, Veronica’s seen that look on her own mom’s face when she missed her curfew last week, but it melts away when she sees Veronica. She blinks in confusion, looking to JD for an explanation. Her eyes land on their joined hands, and Veronica tries not to blush. Last night, she hadn’t thought past getting JD. She really hopes she doesn’t have to tell this woman she broke into her home just to have sex with him.

“This is Veronica,” he explains. “She’s a friend from school. Is it okay if she hangs out here for a bit?”

“Yeah, of course,” she says, giving her a warm smile. “Come on in.” They step into the house, Veronica a little behind JD. The hallway is nice enough, green walls with more paintings and red carpet on the wooden floor, yet she still feels awkward. Maybe because she still looks like hell on wheels and still has last night’s make up on. She tugs her skirt down, hoping to make herself more presentable.

“Also, is it okay if Veronica uses our phone?” JD asks. “She needs to call her parents.”

“Sure, that’s fine,” the woman says. “It’s just back there.”

“Thanks,” Veronica says, looking to where she gestured and back to JD. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to kiss her, but he drops her hand instead. Of course he did, the woman who he says is responsible for him is right there.

“I’ll give you a minute,” he says, going into the kitchen and leaving her alone in the hallway. She picks up the phone and dials her home number.

“Hello?” she hears her mom ask her bright, chipper, “it’s Saturday morning let’s seize the day” voice.

“Hey, Mom, it’s me,” she says.

“Oh, Veronica,” she says. “How was your party?”

_It was great, then my friend was nearly publicly humiliated, then I vomited on someone and was given a death sentence, so you know, could have been better. But hey, remember JD, my friend from when I was 12? Yeah I broke into his house and had sex, so not a total loss._

“Fine,” she says instead. “Hey Mom, there was a bit of a change of plans, and I didn’t stay over at Heather’s. I stayed at someone else’s place.”

“Whose house where you at?” her mom asks, and Veronica fights the urge to groan.

“A friend,” she answers. “A friend from school.”

“Which friend?” Veronica throws her head back and swallows the scream that’s begging to be released.

“A new friend,” she sighs. “His name is JD. And he lives pretty close by so is it okay if I walk home?”

“Well, okay…” she says. “Just… well it’s nine now, so there’s no real rush. Really I thought you’d still be asleep by now.” Veronica chuckles, not sure her mom heard it. “Maybe, home by eleven?”

“Sure,” she agrees. “Thanks mom.”

“Okay, see you then, sweetheart.”

She hangs up and begins to make her way to the kitchen but pauses when she hears JD say her name. After a minute, she presses herself against the wall, out of view of both of them.

“Veronica just needed a place to crash last night,” she hears him explain. “I know I should have told you, but it was like two in the morning.”

“And she’s your friend?” the woman asks in reply, her tone disbelieving.

“Yeah, I met her in school,” he tells her. “You saw her too, she was with me when you had to come in.”

“Oh, yeah. Speaking of which-”

“I know I’m not meant to have friends over right now. Or go out-”

“Jason, what was I meant to think when I saw your room was empty? I was this close to calling the cops!”

“The cops? Okay, it really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Well, for all I knew it was. For all I knew you were kidnapped or you ran away!” Veronica hears her sigh, followed by a long pause. “Just… I know you were helping her out, Jason, and that’s good. That’s great, even. Just next time, please let me know when you’re leaving so I’m not going out of my mind here? Okay?”

“Okay,” he sighs, resigned. “Okay. Look, I just need a favour. This morning, with everything that was going on… I forgot to take my meds. Can you just keep her company for five minutes while I go take them?”

“Sure, sure that’s fine.” She hears his footsteps coming and Veronica sprints back to the phone, feeling idiotic as she lifts the receiver to her ear so she can pretend to hang up just as JD passes her.

“Hey,” she greets, pushing her hair out of her eyes in an attempt to seem casual.

“Hey,” he replies. “Everything okay with your folks?”

“Yeah, it’s all fine,” she says. “As long as I’m home by eleven.”

“Great,” he says, but his smile isn’t quite so wide. “Um, I just need to check something upstairs, why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen, then I can make you breakfast.”

“Sure, sure, no problem.” He squeezes her hand before running upstairs and she tiptoes into the kitchen, pulling one of her sleeves over her hand. The woman who JD seems to live with is standing at the counter, giving Veronica an awkward smile.

“You’re Jason’s friend from school?” she asks politely. Veronica nods, her mouth suddenly dry and she hopes JD comes back down soon, because she feels like she’s suffocating. Even more so when she looks down at her feet and is reminded of the heels she’s wearing and becomes very aware of the make-up on her face. “Were you at a party last night?”

“Yeah,” she replies. “It um, went a bit wrong.” The woman smiles into her coffee and hands her a packet of wet wipes.

“Here you go,” she says. “You can use that mirror as well. I know how bad it is having post-party make-up on your face.”

“Thank you,” she responds, turning to the mirror. She nearly curses when she sees herself. Her lipstick is smeared across her face, her blue eyeshadow, applied expertly by an excited Macnamara, is now smudged along the sides of her eyes. God she must have looked awful when she showed up on Heather’s doorstep that morning.

“So you’ve lived here your whole life?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Veronica answers. “What about you? I don’t think I’ve ever met you, and in this town, everyone kind of knows everyone.”

“I’ve lived here long enough. About seven years,” she answers. “But I keep to myself mostly. Jason’s the first time I’ve had someone old enough to be in high school.” Veronica frowns but doesn’t press her. She keeps wiping away make up until the wipes turn blue and red. “I’m just glad he’s making friends here.”

“JD?” she asks. “We were friends when he lived here before. Back when we were 12.”

“You were?” she replies, surprised. Veronica turns back to her, most of the make-up wiped off now. She feels far better with it off. Like she’s herself again. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad you two are back together then.”

Before Veronica can reply, JD comes back in, his coat discarded now, just in a grey t-shirt and jeans. She’s relieved to see him; she’s not sure how much more awkward conversation with this woman she could handle, nice as she may seem.

“Hey,” he says, coming over to her. He brushes her hair away from her face with a smile. “You look pretty.”

“Thanks,” she replies. Her first instinct is to grab his waist but she goes for his shoulders, aware of the third presence in the room. She looks at her without thinking and JD notices, biting his lip awkwardly.

“Yeah,” he sighs, letting Veronica go and gesturing to her. “Veronica, this is Claire. She’s paid to make sure I don’t commit crimes.”

“It’s more than that, Jason,” she tells him with a slight roll of her eyes.

“She’s my foster mom,” he explains. He doesn’t quite meet Veronica’s eyes, his hands fidgeting like he’s ashamed of having a foster mom. She’s surprised, it’s not something you hear every day, but she can’t see the shame in having one. “She’s the one keeping me out of trouble and making me food. Speaking of, I believe I promised you breakfast.”

“I take it that’s my cue to leave,” she says, lifting her plate and coffee mug and heading towards the door. “I’ll be in the living room. Take good care of my kitchen.”

“I always do,” he says.

“It was nice meeting you,” Veronica calls after her.

“Thanks, you too, Veronica,” she replies, smiling softly and honestly.

“She seems cool,” Veronica says to JD after she leaves. He’s already in the fridge, taking out eggs and bread.

“I guess,” he says, closing the door. He kneels down and takes a pan and jug out of a drawer. “I’ve only been with her a few days. Still she’s one of the better one’s I’ve had.” Veronica keeps her mouth shut. She remembers him referencing “Kerri and George” in a letter he’d written her a lifetime ago. She wonders as she watches him; how many homes has he been through? Are they better or worse than with his dad? She doesn’t ask, instead she wraps her arms around his waist and kisses his shoulder. “So… you told her we’re friends.” She says it both because she wants to change the subject, and well, she’d be lying if she said it didn’t bother her a little.

“Is that a problem?” he asks, flipping the bread over with one hand and taking her hand with the other.

“Is that what we are?” she asks. “Friends?”

“Well what else would I say?” he replies. “Hey Claire, this is Veronica, she broke in last night and took my virginity.” Veronica laughs into his shoulder. He shifts so that he’s facing her and runs his fingers along her cheekbone. “But if you want to be something else… I wouldn’t object.”

She’s new to all this; romance, relationships. The whole ‘boyfriend-girlfriend’ scenario. She has no idea how to navigate this. And she knows that breaking into his room to have sex with him because she’s pissed off isn’t the conventional romance route. In the movies they kiss in a school dance while he professes his love for her, but they’re in his kitchen instead, and this isn’t a movie. She’s not really sure what it feels like; but she knows she feels really good when she’s in his arms and that his smile makes her heart flutter and she wants to be with him.

“Maybe I do,” she whispers honestly. She presses her lips against his, feeling him smiling against her. It’s quick and gentle, him pulling away before it can go further. She buries her face back in his shirt, smiling against his shoulder.

After two rounds of French toast (and he was right, he does make a mean French toast), she leaves, seeing it’s nearly time when her mom will be expecting her back. He walks her to the door, playing gently with her hand.

“You all right?” he asks.

“Heather Chandler’s still going to ruin me on Monday,” she sighs. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do about Martha.” She groans, the guilt she’s suppressed since she wrote the stupid note taking over her. “I have to tell her the truth. She’s going to hate me.”

“Maybe she won’t,” he says, but it’s half-hearted. She nods anyway.

“I’ll see you Monday,” she says, swinging their intertwined hands. “And JD… Thank you. For letting me stay over, for coming with me to Heather’s...”

“Of course,” he replies, tracing her chin with his finger. “I’ll keep my bedroom window open if you ever want to drop by.” She giggles and squeezes his hand before leaving. She’s still scared-no, terrified-of Monday morning, still guilt-ridden, anxious, humiliated, practically defeated. But she has a feeling he’ll stay in her corner. If nothing else, she guesses she has JD, and that can almost be enough.

                                                                        *****

JD stays at the door, watching Veronica leave. A lot of things have changed about her since they were kids; her hair, her clothes, her friends, but she hasn’t changed the way she walks. Lost in her thought, not seeming to look where she’s going. When he saw her in school, he almost didn’t recognise her, running after Heather Chandler in her small skirt. But when he saw her alone, writing in her diary, it was like he’d never left.

“She seems nice,” Claire says from behind him. He wants to laugh. She’s not ‘nice’. ‘Nice’ is too meek a word to describe Veronica. She’s beautiful and stunning and wonderful and unpredictable. ‘Nice’ doesn’t describe a girl who came in through your bedroom window at 2am.

“Yeah, she is,” he says instead, turning away from the window.

“Any way, I’m glad you’re making friends here,” she begins. “Even though=”

“All right, yes, technically, I’m grounded,” he sighs.

“No technically about it, mister,” she reminds him, but it’s playful. There’s almost no force behind her words, which is surprising. They’ve only been together a brief time, but he knows she can be stern if she wants.

“So what’s my punishment?” he asked, resigned. As if he hasn’t done this before.

“You were helping a friend,” she says with a small smile. “What would I be saying if I punished that?”

“So… I’m good?” he asks, tentatively stepping forward. He must be dreaming. If this whole morning had been a dream, he wouldn’t necessarily be surprised. “I’m free to go.”

“Oh, no,” Claire says, shaking her head. “You’re still grounded for another week and a half. Meaning, no friends over, no going out without me knowing, especially if it’s in the morning and I nearly have a stroke thinking about you.”

“And you still have my Baudelaire,” he says bitterly. Apparently, that’s what people do when their foster kid doesn’t watch TV like a ‘normal’ kid. He wonders which of his past carers, gave her that little titbit of advice, or maybe it was his social worker.

Claire sighs, looking him up and down, before disappearing into the living room. He assumes she’s going on with her day and is about to disappear up to his own room, when she comes out holding his book out to him. The Flowers of Evil, one he picked up at a used bookstore when he was 14. His eyes flit between the book and her, checking to make sure it’s really his, and making sure she’s serious. All she does is smile and keep holding it out to him.

“Really?” he asks. “You’re giving me it back?”

“Consider it me lessening your sentence,” she says. “You did a good thing for your friend, Jason.” He takes the book from her, running his fingers over the cracked cover. Foster parents don’t do this. No one has ever done this before. He waits for the catch and realises there isn’t.

“Thanks,” he manages.

“You’re welcome.” She takes a drink of her coffee. “Did you take your meds?”

“Yes,” he sighs, rolling his eyes. “Promise. Just with everything that happened, I forgot to take them when I got up.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, holding her hand up in defence. “Just making sure.” She purses her lips, looking down at her coffee. “This morning, I heard your friend screaming. Thought it was you for a second.” He chuckles humourlessly. He hasn’t woken up screaming in her house yet, and those kind of mornings have become less and less frequent as he’s got older, but they still happen. It’s just a matter of time. “Then I heard you talking to her.”

“Oh?” he asks, tossing the book between his hands. “It’s nothing, just some girl at school being a bitch to her.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he answers, though that might not be true considering what happened at Heather Chandler’s house. “I mean… kind of. She’s a little shaken up about the whole thing.”

“High school,” she says, shaking her head in sympathy. “It’s a tough one.”

“How would you know?” he asks cheekily.

“Believe it or not, Jason, I went to high school not too long ago,” she says and changes the subject before he can get a reply in. “So, what are your plans for today?”

“Homework,” he answers, shrugging. “Reading I guess. I don’t know. I think I still have stuff to unpack.”

“You want some help?”

“No.” He doesn’t mind Claire, or really have strong opinions on her either way, but he knows he doesn’t want her going through his things. Not now, probably not ever. “I can do it myself.”

“Okay,” she says, her voice quieter than normal. “Well if you change your mind you know where I am.”

He hums in agreement before half-jogging up the stairs to his room. He finds that the covers are still thrown back and his sheets rumpled and pulled off the corner. There’s also a large tear in the sheet, which will be a fun thing to explain to Claire. He flips the covers over it and stretches out on the bed. Mere hours ago, Veronica was here, snuggled next to him as they slept, using his chest as a pillow. And before that, she was kissing him everywhere and riding him, making him feel like a new person. Making him feel hers. And now, now he is hers.  She came in through the window and stayed and ate his food and kissed him and held his hand and said she’ll see him on Monday. He knows how dumb and sappy it is, but he smiles at the memory, running his hand over the spot on his bed she had made hers last night.

How often can he say it’s a good day to live in Sherwood, Ohio?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked! Please leave comments and kudos, they're very much appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost 9000 words. I wrote nearly 9000 words on this one chapter. It wouldn't stop. Sweet Jesus.

Veronica goes into school far earlier than normal. Her dad isn’t even awake when she slips out the door, her mom just coming down the stairs. She spins a lie about going to the library before classes to get some books for a project. Her mom didn’t think twice, only patting her shoulder and telling her to have a good day.

The streets are near deserted at this time. Of course they are, no one in their right mind would leave their house now, especially with the light rainfall that’s going on. Only an idiot would. Or a coward. A coward who is too scared to face her best friend.

Her mom said after she got in from JD’s house on Saturday morning that Martha had called, looking for her. Veronica had said she’d call her back and then spent all weekend fearfully looking at her phone, hoping to God it wouldn’t ring. Martha deserved an explanation and she had promised her one, but there she was being far too scared to do it. She still is, her stomach twisting in knots, preventing her from even trying to eat breakfast that morning.

What exactly could she say? She knows what she can, and really should, say “I forged the note and let the Heathers give it to you and gave you false hope please forgive me”. Damn, she already hates herself. And she knows Martha isn’t the type to hate, but she has dignity. They’ve barely spoken since she became friends (or whatever they are-were) with the Heathers, and they haven’t had movie night since the start of school. When they pass each other in the hall, sometimes they’d smile and chat if Veronica was alone, but if she was with any of the Heathers, Martha would scurry away from her like a scared mouse.

She catches sight of herself in the reflection of a car she passes. Bright blue blazer, white shirt, skirt so short it barely qualifies as a skirt. Hell on wheels. That’s what she’d thought when Heathers first bought her all this and told her how to use make-up and style her hair. It’s become so easy now, her old clothes stuffed in the back of her closet, along with her old Barbies and teddy bear, her fairy-tale books and Disney videos. She had stood by with a pained smile and a bowed head while Heather Chandler had gone through her room, putting anything she deemed too childish in the back of her closet. She had wrinkled her nose at most of it, laughingly asking why she even still kept a lot of it. She had mumbled some lie about how her parents wanted to hold onto it. All her old clothes and toys shoved into the back of the closet, along with her old self. Her old friendships. Her old morals.

If this wasn’t someone’s car, she’d punch her reflection. Her hand jerks and clenches into a fist, but she manages to hold herself back, forcing herself to just keep walking. Through quiet streets, past bleary eyed men and women getting into cars to go to work and past dim streetlights, all the while the rain gets heavier.

Her blazer is damp when she gets to school, the wet ends of her hair beginning to curl, her socks sticking to her legs, making them chafe. She pushed them down when she reaches her locker, scowling at the ugly red patches they leave on her legs, but knows they’ll have faded by first period, and opens her locker to get her morning books out. She slams it shut, letting the sound of the sound of the metal door echo up and down the empty hallway, drowning out her heavy, shuddered breathing. Her hand curls into a fist against the locker door, driving it hard into it like she can punch right through the metal. Through the wall behind it and just keep going until she’s knocked a whole through the school.

“Well good morning,” someone says behind her, the voice smooth and silvery. She can hear the smile he no doubt has. When she turns around, pressing her back against the locker, JD is barely two feet behind her, backpack slung on one shoulder and again wearing his black trench coat. She gives him a weak smile and he smiles back as much as he can. “Maybe not so good?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, pushing her hair away from her face. He comes closer to her and she grabs his hand, needing the comfort she gets from him. He takes one look at her face, it’s not like she’s hiding her feelings, and pulls her against him, running his hand up and down her back while she buries herself in his chest, listening to the gentle beat of his heart and rise and fall of his chest. She feels the pressure of a kiss on the top of her head and his arms around her, his fingertips tracing patterns on her back.

 If she closes her eyes, she can pretend it’s Friday night, or Saturday morning, again, and she’s in his bed with him, just about to fall asleep, instead of getting ready to face the best friend she betrayed.

“You were right,” she murmurs sadly.

“About what?” he asks.

“I shouldn’t have bowed down to them.”

“Yeah,” he hums. For a moment, she wants to smack him, because really, all she is looking for is a little bit of sympathy. He must have picked up on her feelings, because he holds her tighter and nuzzles her hair. “But it’s okay.”

“No.” She wriggles out of his arms just enough to look at him. “You saw what I did to Martha.” He shakes his head and opens his mouth to protest, but she presses her finger to his lips to silence him. “I dropped my best friend for a group of girls I’m not even sure I like. What does that say about me, JD? How can any of this be okay?” He sighs deeply and shrugs, threading his fingers through her hair.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “All I do know is that you’re not a bad person.” She looks up at him, frowning slightly, and he just smiles. “I can tell what you’re thinking. And you’re not bad. You’re a very, very good person who made a bad decision. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t leave,” she asks, threading her fingers through his. He has to leave once that bell rings, but she can pretend that doesn’t have to happen. “Please, stay with me.”

“Of course,” he answers. She takes him by the hand and leads him down to her homeroom, cracking the door open slightly. It’s empty, of course, still too early in the day for students or even teachers to be in. She leads him down to her desk and he helps her sit up on it, positioning himself as close to her as he can, one leg on either side of her. His hands are in her lap and she plays with them absent-mindedly, scratching gently in the middle of his palm, touching her fingertips gently to his, lacing their fingers together. Her hands shake against his steady ones. “Are you all right?” She shakes her head slowly.

“I’m scared,” she admits. “I’m scared of telling Martha. I’m scared of how she’ll react and I’m-” It’s ridiculous. Saying it out loud would be even more ridiculous, especially to JD. But he’s watching her and he’s listening and no one else is. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, her hands playing with the hair at the back of his neck. “I’m scared of Heather Chandler.”

“Well don’t be,” he tells her. He puts his finger under her chin and tilts her head up.

“How can I not be?”

“Because I’ll be here to protect you,” he states simply. She can’t stop herself from smiling, warmth spreading from her stomach all over her, making her fingers curl into his coat.

She pulls him closer and kisses him. He smiles against her lips, tangling his fingers in her hair. He has a magical way of making her forget everything that might have been upsetting her. She makes a small, satisfactory noise, her hands cupping the back of his head.

“Miss Sawyer,” a thin voice comes from the doorway. Veronica and JD break apart swiftly and she looks up to see her homeroom teacher, Miss Fleming, standing in the doorway, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at the two of them. “Public displays of affection like that are not allowed under the school code.”

“Yeah, sorry Miss Fleming,” she says.

“Neither is sitting on the desk,” she continues, not taking her eyes off Veronica until she jumps off the desk and onto her chair. JD kneels down so he’s not towering over her and she settles for stroking his hair and letting her hand rest on the back of his neck.

“Busted,” he whispers, just loud enough for her to hear, and she giggles.

 From there, kids begin piling in, some taking note of the new kid in a trench coat kneeling next to Veronica’s desk, some too caught up in their own conversations or in the cloud of Monday morning blues to notice. But not one stop stops to talk to her. JD keeps a tight but gentle grip on her hand, running his thumb along the back of it. She feels like he’s still got his arms around her, shielding her from the debris that’s falling around from her mistake.

At some point, Heather Chandler walks in, Duke and Macnamara in tow with her. She looks at Veronica almost immediately, a triumphant smirk on her face that makes Veronica shrink into her chair, her heartbeat getting faster as everything else seems to fade to black; the only thing in the universe right now is the promise of destruction in Heather’s eyes and in her smile.

“Hey.” JD takes her chin and makes her look at him, his thumb stroking underneath her eye. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here. Just look at me.” She nods, trying to focus on him and block Heather out. He gives her a grin and she tries to copy it. When she can’t fully, he just keeps stroking the back of her hand until she calms down enough.

 When the door opens again, she looks up and sees Martha coming in. She hangs back a little when she sees Veronica, especially when she sees JD next to her, but scurries with her head down to her seat, at least smiling at her.

“You should go,” Veronica whispers to JD.

“Are you sure?”

“I need to do this on my own,” she explains. “I’ll see you later.” He nods, and before he leaves he takes a moment to brush her hair away from her face, letting his fingers linger on her cheekbone before he got up and left. Several people watched him as he went and she can’t blame them. He’s only been in this school less than a week but they’ve all watched him cosy up to her. Despite her better instincts, she looks over at Heather Chandler, and sees her frowning, whispering something to Duke. That can only be bad.

“Veronica,” Martha says, turning around in her seat.

“Hey,” she replies in a small voice. Her throat suddenly runs dry.

“So, how was the rest of the party?” she asks casually.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replies. Martha ducks her head, smiling slightly, but it’s empty. She’s too damn kind to ask her. “I know I said I’d explain everything, and I will.” She turns around and sees her fellow students watching her and Martha, and it feels like they’re vultures circling her. She doesn’t even have the balls to look in Heather Chandler’s direction. She glances up at the clock and sees they still have time before classes officially start. “Just not here. Come on.” She takes Martha’s hand and pulls her out of the room, letting her hair shield her from everyone’s eyes. They come out into the empty hallway and Veronica pulls her into a small corner.

“Veronica, what’s wrong?” she asks. Veronica looks at her best friend, wide eyes, pink unicorn sweatshirt, round glasses. She could just make up some lie. Paint herself as the saviour who stood up to the Heathers’ cruelty. Then they could go on with their lives and their friendships like nothing happened.

But that’s not her.

“Martha, I am so sorry,” she says, feeling her throat closing.

“For what?” she asks.

“Ram-Ram didn’t write that note,” she says. Her heart gets louder with each beat. “Ram didn’t invite you to his homecoming party. I forged it.”

“No,” Martha says, shaking her head. She laughs a little, but it’s forced and cold. “No you didn’t.”

“I did,” she admits. She feels tears run down her cheeks, her eyes hot and already sore. “The Heathers put me up to it and then they gave you the note, and I let them. And I’m so, so sorry.”

Martha steps back and hits her back against the wall. She opens and closes her mouth but no sound comes out.

“Martha?” Veronica asks. “Martha I’m sorry. I just-say something. Please.”

“How could you do that to me?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just-I thought I could protect you at the party. Or that nothing bad would actually happen.” There’s of course, no excuse for what she did. She can blame it on the Heathers or anyone else, but she never stopped them. “Martha, I-” She goes towards her but she backs away from her, recoiling away from her outstretched arms like they’re holding guns.

“I’m sorry, Veronica,” she says. “I just-I don’t think I can talk to you right now.”

She turns and quickly heads back into the classroom before Veronica can say anything, not like there’s anything to say that can fix what she did. She buries her face in her hands to muffle her crying, grateful that no one is around to see her.

When the bell rings, she has to go back inside, regardless of how she looks. She only opens the door a crack and slips in, hoping to attract as little attention as possible, but unfortunately, luck isn’t on her side. All heads, except for one sitting just in front of her desk, turn towards her, whispers bubbling throughout the room. Heather Chandler leans back in her chair with a satisfied grin. If Veronica was brave enough, she’d strangle her there and then.

“Take your seat, Veronica,” Miss Fleming instructs and she almost runs over to it, putting her head in her hands. Martha still doesn’t turn around. She sits alone while Miss Fleming runs through the morning announcements. Some people keep their conversations going under their breath, some flick through books, one or two ask questions. She grips her elbows and tries to keep herself from losing it entirely, her best friend a few feet in front of her, but at the same time completely unreachable.

By lunch, she’s considering faking sick and going home. She might not be faking, given how nauseous she’s felt since that morning. All day people have avoided her like she carries some rare disease. Just as Heather Chandler predicted, not even the losers are touching her, no doubt hearing about how she vomited on the Queen Bee, and who knows what else she let spread around the school. Some of it could be true or it could be lies, it doesn’t matter. It’s coming from Heather Chandler, and that makes it the Word of God.

She walks into the cafeteria with her head bowed, scanning the room for a place to sit. Her old table with the Heathers is off the menu entirely, they deliberately turn their backs to her. She spots Martha and Betty at her old, old table and even dares to approach, only to see Martha shrink back in her seat, Betty putting a comforting arm around her and a “don’t you dare” look at Veronica before whispering something to Martha.

She steps back, message received. Hardly anyone looks at her, and if they do it’s a cold, unwelcoming gaze. Almost all she can see is backs turned to her. Until she feels a tug on her hand and jumps at the contact.

“Woah, hey,” JD says, putting his hands up in defeat. “Just me.”

“Yeah, hey,” she says, pulling her bag up on her shoulder. He takes a quick look around the cafeteria, wincing in sympathy.

“Got no table to sit at?” She shakes her head pathetically. “Me neither. Come on, let’s go.”

“Go?” she asks. “Go where?”

“I’m not asking you to ditch, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “Come on, I’ll show you were I eat.” She takes his hand with a raise of her eyebrows. Still, she follows him out of the cafeteria, not being able to care that everyone she knows has now seen them together. He takes her down the hall and out a glass door, leading into an empty courtyard with stone picnic tables. It’s not entirely unfamiliar to her.

“Martha and I used to come here,” she tells him. “Freshman year. We just thought it was the best place in the world.” He laughs and pulls her over to a low wall. She sits on it and he sits down next to her, one leg on either side of her. She thinks it might be because he wants to keep looking at her but shakes her head to get rid of that idea. “I don’t know why we never came back.” She sags against JD, closing her eyes tightly. “She hates me.”

“Her loss,” he says gently, but it shocks her enough to lift her head off him.

“No, JD,” she tells him. “My loss. I screwed up and now my best friend in the whole world hates me. And she’s right to.”

“Hey, what did I tell you?” he says. “Good person, bad decision.”

“You don’t know me,” she sighs without thinking. “You don’t know if I’m good or bad.”

“I knew you five years ago,” he reminds her.

“You did,” she agrees, turning to look at him. She hesitates for a moment but lets herself be brave and stroke the side of her face, tangling her fingertips in his hair. She bites her lip, her question dancing on her tongue and begging to get out as she thinks about the last time she saw him. “What happened to you?” He looks away from her and she pulls her hand away, afraid she’s gone too far too soon. She wants to grab his shoulder, either to comfort him or beg him to stay.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks, his voice flat.

“Only if you want me to,” she replies. He looks up and smiles, not quite meeting his eyes, and pulls her closer to him, taking her hand in his. He holds it against his chest and takes a deep breath before beginning, looking out rather than at her. “After those social workers took me away, I was put in this temporary foster system and my dad was arrested.” He shakes his head and holds her hand tighter. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details, really. But then I got taken to the courthouse and asked a ton of questions about him and then… then about my mom. They just kept telling me to tell the truth.” He swallows thickly before continuing, still not looking at her. “Anyway they came to the conclusion that he is not a fit parent, which I wasn’t going to dispute. So they charged him with neglect, and some other stuff. Then there was the question of what to do with me. I stayed in one place in Moundsville, but that was never going to be forever. That was just a few weeks until someone was willing to take me. Then I was sent off to Indiana after a few years, actually. Until last July. Then,” he chuckles bitterly and pauses, seemingly trying to find the right words. “I turned out to be quite a handful. And they didn’t have any other teenagers. So I got sent back to the group home for a few weeks while they tried to find someone willing to step up. And it turns out Claire in Sherwood, Ohio was the only one close enough willing to take a teenager with my baggage. No one else in the whole of Indiana was. So I moved in with her just before school started.” He takes a swig of his water and smiles slightly. “Guess I’ve got to thank her.”

“Woah,” she says when he’s done. She’s not sure what else there is to say; his story sounds like something from a TV special aired late on Friday nights. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why?” he asks. “Not your fault, Ronnie. And-” He closes his mouth and shakes his head, clearly thinking better of himself. He settles for pressing his forehead to hers and rubbing their noses together softly. “So, Veronica. I’ve told you what happened to me, now tell me what happened to you.”

“What?” she asks. JD raises an eyebrow and gestures to her outfit. “Oh. That. Okay. Well, it started when I was just in the bathroom when the Heathers were there. It was the first day of this year. And Mrs Fleming came in and busted them for not having hall passes. So I… forged them one.”

“You’re still doing forgeries?” JD interrupts, amused. She laughs and shoves him.

“Yeah, and I’ve gotten way good at it,” she tells him. “Anyway, it worked, so I asked them to let me sit at their table.” She even cringes as she tells it. It would be so much better if it had happened to someone else and she just watched from the side lines like she used to. “But then they sort of… made me over. Bought me new clothes, showed me how to do my make-up. Accepted me up into their circle.” She leans her head on his shoulder. “I can feel you judging me.”

“I’m not judging you,” he promises.

“You should,” she sighs. He kisses her head and just smiles gently. “So I started hanging out with them. Eating lunch with them, going to their parties, going to their houses. Martha and I sort of hung out less and less.” She picks at the sandwich sitting on her lap, her appetite deserting her. “It was fun, I guess. Until it wasn’t.”

“You stood up to her, though,” he points out. “Quite heroically.” She rolls her eyes but hides her smile behind her hair. They eat their lunch in a comfortable silence, sharing silent smiles and whispered kisses. “Well, look at us,” he says eventually. “One former Heather, one messed up foster kid. Quite the pair.”

“You’re not messed up,” she tells him, making him smile.

The bell rings, too soon for her liking, signalling the end of lunch. Veronica crams as much of her sandwich into her mouth, giggling at JD’s face. She takes his hand and lets him lead her back into the school, swinging their arms slightly. When they get inside, the halls are still buzzing with students, brushing past her and JD without giving them a second glance, either because they’re too busy to notice them or because of her new status as a social pariah. And oddly enough, she likes it that way far more than she did when everyone’s eyes were on her.

                                                                                                      *****

Veronica spends every lunchtime with JD out in the courtyard, even when it rains on Thursday (they huddle under a tree to keep dry, their knees touching). By the next week, Veronica, tired of the judgemental and disgusted looks in the cafeteria, doesn’t even wait for JD there, simply sits on the wall waiting for him.

“Well someone’s early,” he says, coming behind her and kissing her head before settling next to her.

“You took your time,” she corrects cheekily.

“So,” he begins delicately, rubbing his hand on her back. “As of this Friday, I’m no longer grounded.” Veronica hums in acknowledgement, her lunch in her mouth. “And in celebration, I thought on Saturday I could take you out on a proper first date.”

“A date?” she asks, her voice higher than usual. She bites her lip as she smiles, fighting the blush creeping up her cheeks.

“I mean if you don’t want to that’s-”

“No, JD!” she says, grabbing his arm as he tries to move away from her. “JD, I’d really like that. I’d really like a first date with you.” She cocks her head to the side for a moment. “Well, technically second.”

“Well yes, but our first date was you breaking into my house and seducing me,” he reminds her, making her giggle. He presses his lips to hers in a quick kiss. “So, Saturday night? I’ll take you somewhere nice. Well, as nice as there is in Sherwood, Ohio.” She chuckles in agreement and offers him a chip. “And I can pick you up at your house.”

“Actually,” she says. “Why don’t I just meet you there?” He frowns in confusion. “I don’t really want my parents to know I have a boyfriend yet.” She laces their fingers together and snuggles into his chest. “I know it’s weird and kind of dumb, but if I tell them they’ll be all over us. They’ll take photos like we’re going to prom. And my dad will spend at least half an hour grilling you about your intentions with his daughter. I’m an only child, remember? Right now, I sort of just want to you myself.”

“Sounds perfect,” he says, kissing her gently. Gently at first, then she kisses harder, grasping his shoulders as he tightens his grip on her waist. She moans slightly and bites on his lip. When she pulls away, he chases her lips for a moment, grinning.

“Not at school, JD,” she tells him playfully, tapping his nose.

                                                                                                ******

Safe alone in his room after school, JD finally allows himself to bounce up and down, pumping his fists in the air in the privacy of his own bedroom. The excitement in his body had been coursing through him since lunchtime, making him unable to sit still or even focus on lessons. How could he focus on meaningless things like the civil war when Veronica Sawyer had agreed to go on a date with him?

He thinks that their first date is rather overdue; he wishes they’d had this chance years ago, if he had stayed in Sherwood when they were twelve and he had asked her out when they were fifteen and right now they’d be living in bliss, maybe not ruling the school, but laughing at the Heathers and their ridiculousness while sitting under the bleachers.

But he’ll just have to make up for lost time.

When he sets his bag down on the bed, reality starts dawning on him. Their date is on Saturday; that’s three days away. He lowers himself on the bed, getting his thoughts into order. First things first; he had to find a restaurant. He hasn’t ventured out much since he moved here except for going to and from school and all he has passed is a burger joint that looks from the outside like a heart attack and food poisoning rolled into one. On his first night, Claire had suggested going out to eat, telling him about the various places to go around town, but he just shook his head silently and she ended up ordering pizza, which he had picked at wordlessly before mumbling about not being hungry.

Now he’s kicking himself for not listening to her.

He gets up and goes to his wardrobe instead. Inside is fairly depressing, all he sees is grey or black t-shirts, exactly two checked blue shirts and a spare pair of dark jeans. He supposes he got into the habit of not owning much when he was younger and it stuck. It made moving to new foster placements easier anyway but made dates significantly harder.

Claire knocks gently but firmly on his door.

“Come in,” he says without thinking.

“Hey,” she greets, stepping into his room just a little. “How was school? I didn’t even hear you coming in.”

“It was fine.” He frowns at the pitifully empty wardrobe.

“Something wrong?” she asks tentatively.

“Why are the only things I own grey t-shirts?” he asks, not expecting an answer, not even directing it at her. He’s just speaking because she’s there and it’s better than letting it sit inside his head.

“Want to add some colour?” she asks teasingly.

“It doesn’t matter,” he sighs, sitting on his bed, back against the wall. He picks at some loose skin on his finger, trying to appear nonchalant. “Hey, where’s good to get food in this town?”

“Planning on going out?”

“Yeah, on Saturday,” he tells her. “After all, my punishment is over on Friday, right?”

“Right,” she agrees. She drums her fingers on the wood of his doorframe as she thinks. “Well there’s a nice Chinese place in the middle of town-”

“Take out?” he asks and she nods. “Nah I’m not looking for take out.”

“Oh, so you’re going _out_ out,” she says, smirking a little.

“Maybe.”

“Going out with someone?” she continues.

“Maybe,” he says again. He deliberately doesn’t look at her, knowing her hopeful smile is too much for him right now.

“Well, there’s a little Italian place,” she tells him. “Mostly pizza and pasta. Not too pricey, but it’s nice. I took a kid of mine there a few years back and they really liked it.” JD tries not to laugh. If she’s hinting it’s not working. “I’ll get you the address.”

“Cool. Thanks,” he says.

“And if you want, we can go out to the mall,” she offers. “Get you something nice that isn’t, well… grey.”

“I’m okay,” he lies, deliberately avoiding her eyes. “I’ll think of something.”

“If you’re sure,” she says. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He responds with a small hum and she takes the cue to leave, leaving his door slightly open. He glares in the direction of his pathetic wardrobe. There’s no way he can show up on a date wearing the same thing he always wears. Let alone a date with Veronica of all people. He chews his lip, suppressing a groan as he prepares to swallow his pride, and violate his rule to get as little involved with his foster parents as possible.

“Hey, Claire,” he asks loudly from his bedroom door, wincing a little. He spots her just as she’s reaching the bottom of the stairs. She turns around and looks up at him, leaning slightly on the bannister. His mouth runs dry and he stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Where’s good to buy clothes here?”

“There’s a nice store downtown,” she says. “Not too pricey, but good quality. I can drive you there now, I’m not doing anything.”

“It’s fine,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I can get there myself.”

“Can you?” she asks. “Without knowing where it is?”

“Then tell me,” he says, retrieving his coat and opening his sock drawer to take out his savings, tied up with a rubber band. All his allowance and car washing and newspaper delivering money he had saved since he was 13, rarely ever needing to go out anywhere meant he only spent money on necessities and as a result had quite the stack of what he called “emergency” cash, in case things get so bad he needs to run. Thankfully he hasn’t yet.

He gets into the front seat of Claire’s car without a word, patting out a quiet rhythm on the door.

“So, Saturday night,” she asks carefully. “Don’t suppose I get to know who exactly you’re going out with?”

“Do you need to know?”

“Not exactly.” She redirects her attention to the road, but her smile stays. Her stupid, teasing, affectionate smile. “Is it Veronica?” He responds by pulling up his coat collar to hide his face. She nods and presses her lips together in a thin line, keeping her eyes on the road. A stab of guilt pierces his gut, which he tries to ignore.

They don’t talk until she pulls up outside the store. He glances at it as he unbuckles his seatbelt, taking in the block lettering in bright red against the shining white plastic sign.

“Martin and Son’s,” he reads out loud, stepping out of the car. He follows Claire into the store, a bell jingling as the door opens. Inside the store has bright red carpeting and yellow walls lined with pale woods shelves of jeans, t shirts and sweaters. He strolls around, scanning his eyes over the store’s stock.

“See anything you like?” Claire asks, appearing behind him.

“I don’t know yet,” he mumbles, continuing to look through the racks of clothes. He doesn’t give the racks of logoed t-shirts a second glance and moves onto the racks of shirts. He quickly flies past the rest of the coloured ones and lifts a crisp white one off the rail. He holds out the sleeve to inspect it better, seeing the blue lining on the cuffs and feeling the soft yet sturdy fabric underneath his fingers. Simple as it is, it’s about as perfect as he can get and just what he was looking for. And when he checks the price tag and sees it’s only 10 dollars, it’s even more perfect.

“Are you getting that?” Claire asks, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he replies flatly, lifting his roll of cash from under his arm and lifting out a ten.

“Hey, don’t worry I can pay for it,” she says, already opening her bag.

“I’ve got it,” he sighs, not even looking at her. The phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind’ crosses his mind briefly, but that unfortunately turns out not to be the case.

“Jason, really, save your money for-”

“I said I’ve got it!” he snaps, taking a big, deliberate step away from her. He doesn’t quite regret it, but the sad look on her face still manages to make something unsettling swirl and his stomach and make him hunch his shoulders. “I got it.”

He pays for it while the waits a considerable distance from him, pretending to check out a rack of blouses with 50% off. He chuckles under his breath as he sees her. They don’t particularly fit in with her jumper and jeans filled wardrobe. They go back to the car and drive home without so much as a word to each other, the radio filling in the uncomfortable silence between them. He shifts awkwardly in his seat, his stomach and chest feeling almost empty, and like something is sitting and gnawing at his chest. He finds himself feeling attacked by the lack of words, the silence he often longed for with Claire suddenly feeling suffocating.

“Thanks,” he says. “For the tip on the store. And the restaurant. I think we’ll go there.”

“You’re welcome, kid,” she replies fondly. He sits back in the seat, rubbing the plastic bag containing his shirt between his fingers. The feeling in his chest fades slightly but doesn’t go away entirely. But it does fade faster when he looks at the shirt in his plastic bag.

                                                                                                                ******

After the complete disaster at Ram’s party, Veronica never thought she’d miss Heather Chandler again, or any of them, save maybe MacNamara. When she was with them, she learned all the tricks to get boys to notice her; ways to make her eyes more noticeable, how to frame her face with her hair, what to wear to show off her legs (which according to Chandler was her best feature) and make boys want her number. It worked; when she was with the Heathers she had a lot of boys (far more than she was comfortable with) asking for her number, asking if she was single, telling her how ‘hot’ she looked. If they were here now, at least in between the backhanded comments and judgemental looks around her room, they could show her what to do, instead of standing at her closet in a bra and skirt with the door closed and curtains drawn and two different outfits discarded on her bed. She doesn’t want to look like a Heather, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to look how she used to, not tonight anyway.

She lifts a short sleeved light blue shirt off the hanger and holds it against her chest, looking in the mirror on her closet door. It looks cute, especially with the black skirt, but she frowns at it, worrying she might look too childish in it. She takes out a dark blue blazer to go with it, hoping it’ll make it look less soft, and heads over to her dressing table, looking at all the make up the Heathers had gotten her.

She doesn’t need them, she decides. She doesn’t. She’s smart, smart enough to take an AP class and apply to Harvard, Duke and Brown. She must be smart enough to do her own make-up without anyone holding her hand. She picks up the eyeliner pencil first, holding it steadily underneath her eye, keeping in mind MacNamara’s words until it feels like she’s in the room with her, guiding her hand. Liking the way her eyes look, she puts the eyeliner down and reaches for tube of red lipstick, only to pull her hand back. After considering, she reaches for a tube of paler pink, a gift from an aunt for her last birthday which made Duke roll her eyes. The thought gives her a smirk as she’s putting it on. The difference it makes is small, but she notices it. Finally, she lifts an unopened bottle of dark blue nail polish and starts painting her nails, keeping a cautious eye on the clock.

Once she’s finished, she glances at her mirror almost sheepishly, curling her dried fingers into her hands. Still, despite her parents’ values about modesty, she likes what she sees. The shirt doesn’t look nearly as childish as she feared, especially not with her blazer covering most of it. And she’d even say she did a decent job on the make-up, even if all it does is make her eyes look bigger and her lips softer. If there’s a goodnight kiss, she wants to at least make it memorable for both of them.

Her leg bounces anxiously as the clock shows she has less than an hour until her date. JD gave her the address of the restaurant at school, written on a page torn out of his notebook, and told her he’d booked the table for six.

After he’d left, she smoothed the note out and put it in her pocket, bouncing up and down on her heels and trying not to squeal. She turns quickly, only to realise that she didn’t really have anyone to tell it all to, making the excitement bubbling in her chest subside quickly. No Martha, no Heathers. Just Veronica on her own in the middle of a near empty hallway. She doesn’t have anyone to get excited over stuff like first dates with anymore.

She turns quickly and lifts her purse from her bed. If she leaves now she’ll still be early, but it’s better than sitting in her room while the butterflies in her stomach get more and more agitated and the air in her room feels heavier.

She told a little white lie to her parents on Friday night; that she and the Heathers were going out for dinner. They don’t know about the fiasco of last week and they don’t need to, and they certainly don’t need to know about JD yet.

The whole walk to the restaurant she has to fight the urge to pick at her nail polish. She finds it easily enough; when she sees it she suddenly remembers all the times she’s passed it but never went inside. Inside the tables are all covered in red and white checked tablecloth and have small candles on them, and outside there’s a white and red striped canopy over the front entrance. The building itself is red brick and white paint on the windows and a menu pinned next to the door surrounded by a brown wooden frame. All in all, JD seems to have great taste in restaurants.

She keeps her eye on her watch. She’s ten minutes early but that doesn’t matter. She stands against the wall and watches cars and people pass until there’s only five minutes left. Then the hands of her watch tick to seven o’clock and she looks up, as if JD was just going to materialise in front of her. She tries to dismiss her worry when he doesn’t show up immediately, telling herself that he’s human and is probably just a minute away. She tells herself this as the hand on her watch ticks away from the twelve and towards the one and against her better judgements, she begins counting the seconds in her head, twisting her watch on her wrist until it starts hurting-

“Hey.” JD stands just behind her. His usual t-shirt is gone in favour of a white shirt, his hair seems a little more tame, his curls brushed down, and even his dog tag necklaces are gone. The trench coat has stayed, and she finds herself grateful for it, but it’s far more open than she’s seen it before. “I know I’m a little late, I’m sorry, I thought I was closer-”

“Two minutes late,” she says as a weight lifts from her chest. “Yeah, real deal breaker, JD.” They laugh and he holds his hand out to her.

“Shall we?” She takes his hand and the butterflies start in her stomach again, but the good kind. He leads her into the restaurant and to their table, next to one of the windows.

“This place is really nice,” she remarks as she sits down, taking a menu from the waiter.

“That’s what I promised you,” he reminds her. “Though really, Claire is the one you should thank. She told me about this.” He bites his lip slightly. “Just hope she was right.” He takes a moment to look up at her, smiling softly as he takes in her appearance. “You look really pretty.”

“Thanks,” she replies, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Um, you look great to.”

“Thanks,” he laughs nervously. He taps his nails on the table nervously, struggling for something to say. “Why don’t I order us some drinks?”

“Do you have a fake ID?” she asks with a smirk.

“Unfortunately no, which means we’re going to have to skip the alcohol.”

“Fine by me,” she says, wincing slightly, her mind flashing back to Ram’s party before she can stop it. “Me and alcohol don’t really mix.” He seems to sense her discomfort and grabs her hand, rubbing his thumb the back of it and across her knuckles. She smiles at the contact, her shoulders relaxing. They can’t touch her here. “I’ll just get a Coke.”

She orders a pasta carbonara as well while he gets a plain cheese pizza and the conversation turns to school, and of all things, the Heathers. Turns out making fun of them is actually pretty fun, especially when she finds herself unloading all the issues she’s been holding back, every sarcastic remark about Chandler or Duke she’s hidden with a smile in their presence.

“You’re not serious?” he asks, his eyes glittering.

“Yep,” she admits, hanging her head slightly. “Chandler got me to forge a note to get her out of gym by saying she had yearbook committee, and another to get her out of yearbook committee on the same day.” She scrunches up her face. “And I agreed to it.”

“Okay, okay,” he says between laughs. “But what I need to know is… how did you get so good at forgeries? I mean when we were kids you had a knack for it, but when did you make it a career choice?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I just thought, hey, I’m good at this, you know. It was sort of a hobby. That I just got insanely good at.” She takes his napkin and giggles, lifting a pen out of her purse. “Here, watch. You know Miss Fleming?”

“I think it’s impossible not to,” he says. “But she signed off on my papers when I came here.”

“Okay, watch.” She gets to work, which is harder on a napkin, which tears or stretches with almost every stroke of her pen, but she gets it done and turns it around to show JD an identical copy of Miss Fleming’s signature.

“That’s pretty amazing, Veronica,” he laughs, making her heart skip a beat. He looks over at her finished plate and pushes his own away from him slightly, leaning over on the table. “So, what about dessert? I’d happily split an ice cream sundae with you.”

“Sounds great,” she says, smiling softly to herself as the butterflies settle in her stomach. “You know all the ways to me, don’t you?”

They order a chocolate sundae, satisfying Veronica’s secret sweet tooth, and that takes them on a stroll down memory lane. The world outside is dark, the sky turning ink-blue, but the candles are lit around them, light the whole place, and JD’s face in an orange hue.

“Back when I was a kid, I used to spend summers with my grandparents in Maine,” she tells him. As she’s rambling, she wonders briefly if she can get drunk on ice cream. “It was always cold up there but my grandpa used to get me this really huge ice cream-or maybe I just thought it was huge because I was a little kid. But he got me one every time I went there. Vanilla, whipped, chocolate sauce.” She takes another spoonful of ice cream. “My mom never let me get actual chocolate because she thought that vanilla was healthier.” She pauses as he laughs, his smile reaching his ears and creating little dimples in his cheeks. She finds herself wanting to press her fingers into the indents. “But yeah, best ice cream I’ve had came from an ice cream van in Maine.”

“Aww,” he says. “That’s kind of adorable.” She half-hides her cheek behind her hand but it does nothing to hide her oncoming blush. “I guess mine was…” His tongue darts out of the corner of his mouth, his smile softening at the edges. “I was 14. So I was living in Indiana at the time. And the foster parents I was with took all of us, like eight kids, about 12 to 14 years old, out to the movies. We saw The Great Mouse Detective. It was shit. But the foster dad got us all these little tubs of ice cream they were selling at the theatre. And I got a chocolate and vanilla swirl. And it was the second best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

“What was the first?” she asks. He taps the spoon against their half-emptied sundae glass, making a small tinkling around only they can hear. She turns her spoon around in the glass, looking down at it; it’s almost empty, save for smears of ice cream up and down the sides of it and a red cherry sitting amongst the sea of light brown. “I’ll fight you for the cherry.” He smirks, licking his lower lip.

“On three,” he says. “Keep your spoon up, it’s not fair if you keep it in the bowl.” She raises her spoon, poised down at the glass like a fighter jet. “One… two… three.”

Their spoons go down together, the metal clanking drowned out by her own too-loud laughter. They fight each other in the glass, her cheeks and throat beginning to hurt from laughing, until she raises hers out, cherry sitting pride of place, and pops it into her mouth with a winning grin.

“Fair and square,” he chuckles. “He checks his watch and looks out the window. “Hey, it’s getting late, why don’t I just pay the check and take you home?”

“You’re paying the check?” she asks, already taking her purse out. “No way, we’re splitting this.”

“Come on, Veronica,” he says. “Let me be the gentleman here.”

“You’ve been a gentleman all night,” she says, making him smile bashfully. “It’s 1989, JD. We’re splitting this check.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “But next time I am at least buying you a drink. Or an ice cream.”

They step out into the street, trading the warmth of the restaurant for the slight chill of a September night in Ohio. She tries not to shiver, but it’s hard, and her eagle eyed boyfriend picks up on it anyway.

“Are you cold?” he asks.

“A little,” she admits. After a moment, he puts his arm around her and pulls her close, studying her face the whole time. She responds by wrapping her own arm around his waist, rubbing her cheek against his coat.

“Warmer now?” he asks gently into her hair.

“Yeah,” she replies, tightening her grip on his waist. A check on her watch says it’s 20 minutes until her curfew and she suppresses a groan. When she was with the Heathers, they had always mocked her for having a curfew, some more than others, all three of them stayed out as late as they wanted while Veronica had to leave their houses at 9:45. She is sure JD wouldn’t make fun of her like they did, but she would vastly prefer staying out here with him than having to go back home and answer her mother’s questions with one or two words.

“Hey, Ronica,” a slightly slurred voice says behind them.

“Oh, Christ,” she mutters. She takes JD’s hand and starts pulling him, urging him to walk faster, but their path is cut off by none other than Kurt and Ram, who lean on each other, sniggering to themselves, no doubt taking in how close they’re standing and their intertwined hands.

“What are you doing out here,” Kurt asks. “Especially with Bo Diddley here.”

“None of your business,” she says, sounding braver than she feels.

“Ohhhh,” Ram says. “You two out on a little date?”

“What, you using her to act straight?” Kurt giggles. Veronica feels JD’s hand tighten around hers and has a slightly worrying feeling that it’s not entirely out of protectiveness.

“Buzz off,” she says, shaking her head to make her hair fall out of her face. She sticks her chin up and straightens her back, but she doesn’t look them in the eye. “Don’t you two have somewhere to go?”

“Uh, yeah,” Kurt admits. “Going to a party at Heather Chandler’s.”

“Shame you won’t be there,” Ram adds with a wink. “Unless you want to ditch Bo Diddley here.”

“You already used that insult,” JD reminds them. They look at him dumbly, mouths hanging open, but shrug him off.

“Whatever, dude,” Ram says. “Later.” They stagger off into the night, shoving each other and laughing at something that probably isn’t that funny.

“Assholes,” JD mutters.

“Hey,” she says, tugging on his coat sleeve. “Come on, let’s just go home.”

When they arrive at the corner of her street, her house is just about visible under the streetlights, less than a minute’s walk, but she stops him there, placing her hand on his chest.

“Just stop here,” she says. “I don’t want to risk my parents seeing us.” He takes her by the waist and pulls her against his chest, pushing her hair away from her face and making her heart race. “I had a really nice time tonight.”

“I’m glad,” he replies softly. “I had a nice time too.” She grasps the collar of his coat, watching her breath come out in smoke as he sways her gently. “So, do I get a second date?” She giggles and presses her finger gently to his lips.

“My turn to ask,” she tells him. “Will you go out with me again?”

He answer her with a kiss, cupping the back of her head with his hand and stroking gently. She makes a small, pleased noise as she kisses him back with just as much fervour, her teeth tugging on his lip, her tongue entering his mouth. She feels him against her, ready and willing to take it as far as she likes. She pushes him against the hedge, running her hand down his chest and tugging on his hair while their tongues and teeth keep clashing.

“Okay,” she breathes, pulling away from him. Under the orange glare of the streetlamp, she can see his red cheeks. “Good night, JD.”

“See you in school,” he replies, stroking the back of her hand before turning and heading to his house. She takes a few steps backwards as she goes so she can keep her eyes on him. Her boyfriend. She has an actual boyfriend. A funny, charming, protective boyfriend who makes her blush and cooks her breakfast and makes her feel like she’s the only person in the world.

Her diary is going to have quite the entry tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please leave comments and kudos if you liked to validate my life decisions.


	6. Chapter 6

Kurt and Ram come into Heather Chandler’s house at least fifteen minutes after they said they would, as per usual. Kurt throws himself all over Heather MacNamara once he sees her, pushing her away from her spot on the couch to hug her tightly, more than a little too tightly for her liking, his hands stroking up and down her arms. Her heart feels like it freezes every time his hands go near her legs, and every time he kisses her head, her throat tightens so much she feels she can’t breathe. She tries to push herself away from Kurt, just enough to get room to breathe, and thankfully he’s too invested in what Ram is telling Heather Chandler and Duke to try to hold onto her more. Not for the first time, she misses Veronica being here. At least when Veronica was around, she could feel like someone was looking at her for the right reasons.

“What took you two so long then?” Chandler asks as Ram hands her a beer. She leans back in the plush red couch in her living room, her long legs dangling over the arm, feet swinging in her black pumps. The couch is more than big enough for three people, but Duke stands next to the fireplace, which dwarfs her with its impressive size, while MacNamara herself had sat down on the white leather couch on the other side of the room, facing the tall French windows, letting her look out into the street.

“We got caught up at the liquor store,” Ram explains. Chandler beckons him over with a wave of her hand, and he comes immediately, sharing a grin with Kurt that makes MacNamara suppress a shiver. Chandler gets him settled underneath her, her head resting on his chest and his hand stroking her hair. MacNamara looks over to the fireplace, and she wonders if the scowl on Duke’s face is real or a trick of her mind, brought on by the light of the fire casting shadows on her face. She hopes it’s the latter, since Duke is her ride home and being in a car with her when she’s angry is a suffocating experience. “And guess who we ran into?”

“Who?” Duke asks, crossing over the room to get a beer for herself. Kurt waves his hand and she passes two cans over to him. Once she gets one, she goes to sit on the arm of the couch Chandler. Chandler narrows her eyes at her for what must be less than a second, and she graciously stands, leaning back against the wall.

“Veronica,” Kurt laughs, opening a can and handing it to MacNamara. She smiles and thanks him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She sips at it, hoping it will make her heart beat slower. She tries thinking back to chemistry class, remembering the words ‘alcohol’ and ‘depressant’ being used in the same sentence at one point. “She was out with Bo Diddley.”

“Ugh,” Chandler groans, rolling her eyes. She takes a large swing of her beer. “Of course she was. He can’t take his pathetic little eyes off her. Have you seen them in school?”

“He’s always following her around,” Duke agrees. “Like he’s some sad little puppy.” She takes a drink of her own beer, her movements mimicking Chandler’s like a small, green-clad Chandler. “Plus they’re always sneaking off at lunch together.”

“Woah, what do you think they’re doing there?” Ram asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t think they’re doing anything,” MacNamara adds. “I think they just eat lunch. I mean, it’s school. They wouldn’t do it at school, right?”

“I would,” Kurt replies. “I’d get it on with you in your little cheerleader uniform under the bleachers.”

“Ew, Kurt, gross,” she replies, pushing his hands off her waist.

“Oh come on, that could be hot,” he protests. “You and me, no one around-” The thought alone is enough to make her squirm, and she looks over at Chandler, praying for her to see her. She does, thankfully, and rolls her eyes as she sits up.

“Kurt, stop,” she orders. “You’re being juvenile.” She sits back against Ram as MacNamara finally moves out of Kurt’s grasp altogether, sliding carefully to the other side of the couch. “Besides, she’s such a pussy she wouldn’t know how to.”

 “Who, Heather Mac?” Kurt says dumbly. “She’s no pussy, she-”

“No, Veronica,” she corrects him sharply. “I’d kind of feel bad for her boytoy if he wasn’t a psycho. He probably can’t get any action from her.” MacNamara nods, taking another sip of her beer despite how it makes her gag. She doesn’t exactly get a good vibe from JD, but every time she sees Veronica with him, she’s smiling and laughing as they whisper to each other in the hall or as they sneak off to wherever they go to at lunch. “Want to place bets on how long it’ll take him to walk away? I’ll give it two weeks. She’s probably saving herself for marriage.” She joins her hands together and bats her eyelashes for the full effect, making Duke giggle and Kurt and Ram holler and declare girls like that are ‘no fun’.

She wants to ask Heather why exactly she cares about Veronica’s sex life, but she bites it back, clenching her teeth together to stop the words escaping her mouth. A stab of guilt hits her in the stomach and no amount of beer makes it go away, no matter how much she drinks.

“I mean, she could have had any boy she wanted when she was with us,” Duke points out. “She still could, probably. But she chose him.”

“Oh come on, no one’s going to touch her now,” Chandler replies. “Not even Martha Dumptruck talks to her now, come on Heather, keep up.”

“I’d still hit that,” Kurt says, looking over at MacNamara. “No offense babe. You could join in too, if you wanted.”

“Thanks,” she says without looking at him. A blush creeps up her face at the idea of her and Veronica, minus Kurt, but she pushes that thought away as quickly as it came, choosing instead to focus on the hurt she feels at Kurt’s lack of loyalty, or at the very least, tact.

“You would?” Chandler asks. “Huh. What about you, Ram?”

“Oh yeah,” he laughs. “I would so love going down on her.”

“Really.” Chandler gets up and strolls over to the mirror above her fireplace, pushing her hair away from her face. The look on her face, the cunning smirk she seemed to have perfected in the seventh grade making MacNamara’s blood run cold. “Pity she’d never do it with you.”

“Oh she would,” Kurt protests.

“Yeah,” Ram agrees, their previous assessments of Veronica’s sex life apparently forgotten. “Why wouldn’t she? What’s wrong with us.”

“You’ve seen her with JD. That’s what she’s into. She’d never be into you two,” she says. She turns around to face them, holding her chin up. “I have an idea. And I need you two to do it.”

“What is it?” Duke asks, pushing away from the wall and coming closer.

“You two,” she says, pointing at Kurt and Ram, never even looking at Duke for a second. “I think you should let the school know what really went down between yourselves and Veronica tonight.” Kurt and Ram share an open mouthed look.

“Uh, we talked to her?” Ram asks.

“No,” Chandler sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose and taking in a deep breath. “Exaggerate a little bit. Fantasize. Go as wild as you want.”

“Ohhhhh!” Ram laughs, nodding at Kurt, who points at him with a large, dopey grin on his face. “We’ll fantasize all right.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agrees. “Tell everyone we bent her right over. And then we-” He makes a quick, rough stabbing motion in the air and it makes MacNamara’s skin crawl.

“Okay,” she says, raising her voice a little to carry over Kurt and Ram’s continued descriptions of what they ‘did’ to Veronica. “But why are we doing this?”

“Because, Heather,” Chandler explains with a roll of her eyes, her tone soft. She takes MacNamara’s hand and pulls her to her feet, leading her over to the fireplace with her. Duke comes closer, closing the little circle they form.  “I told her she’d be ruined. And I can’t do that if she’s still cuddling up to her boy toy every lunch.” She drains her can and glowers at her reflecting in the mirror above. “She doesn’t get to roam around being happy like that. Not after what she did to me.”

MacNamara nods in understanding, swishing her beer can, listening to the liquid sloshing around inside, wanting it to drown out both Kurt and Ram’s voices behind her and the voice in her own head telling her that this isn’t right. Of course it isn’t, but Chandler has never been interested in right or wrong, just winning. And while she knows right and wrong, she also knows better than to try to tell Chandler what she can or can’t do, or who she can or can’t exact revenge on. If she wants to take revenge on one of the few people to show MacNamara real kindness, not the condescending false-sweetness Chandler gives her or the short, dry answers she gets from Duke, one of the few people MacNamara would have counted as an actual friend, then she can. Her friends might be a hard team to be on, but being off the team is far, far worse.

                                                                                                *****

When Veronica gets out of her dad’s car on Monday morning, the wind almost blows her over, but at least it’s not raining. She bids a quick goodbye to her dad and hurries into the school, taking into account the light grey clouds covering the sky. Inside it’s barely warmer, but at least she can walk without a gust of wind in her face. Students pass by without so much as giving her a second glance, as her life has been since the Homecoming party from Hell, as she and JD have taken to calling it. She can’t lie to herself; even with her and JD’s lunch dates and him giving her smiles across the room in social studies and grasping her hand softly when he passes her in the halls, it’s nothing compared to the way people hurry away from her like she has some sort of disease, or how they blank her entirely. She’s lower than low now. She sits alone in study hall when JD’s not there, the seats next to her empty unless someone absolutely has to sit there, and she sits in silence in homeroom, drumming her nails on the desk or writing in her diary and waiting for the bell to ring.

Worst of all is Martha’s back turned to her. Martha comes into homeroom just before the bell rings now, moving swiftly to her seat. Veronica used to see her looking at her but she’d always turn away before she could even attempt to speak to her, but now she won’t even look at her, burying her face in her notes instead. She used to think she and Martha were forever. When they were little they’d plan their futures together; double weddings and living next to each other and being roommates in college. Then they grew up and Veronica realised not all of that was possible, but she still thought nothing could ever tear them apart. But something did, and it was something Veronica caused. So all she can do is wallow in self-pity until graduation.

Veronica gets to her locker, trying to shake off the feeling of people around her, their conversations white noise around her until she hears her name come up in the conversation of the girl and boy next to her.

“Veronica?” the girl asks. “Veronica Sawyer?”

“Yeah?” she asks, turning her head towards them, closing her locker door a little. She sees it’s Melissa from her maths class. Back in middle school, she used to hang out with Melissa, not exactly best friends, but they’d been to each other’s birthday parties and had played in the yard together and at one point had swapped Barbie dolls together. Now, Melissa’s mouth hangs open and she looks from Veronica to the boy-Drew, another old sort of friend- whose hands are on her waist, clearly not having known Veronica was there. Veronica sighs, wishing she’d just kept her mouth shut, shaking her head at herself for even thinking they were talking to her. She can count on one hand the amount of times someone who isn’t JD has spoken to her lately. “Oh, it’s nothing. A different Veronica.”

“Right,” she says. Internally, she asks ‘ _how dumb do you think I am?’_ but she doesn’t let it out. “Whatever. Forget I said anything.” She opens her locker back up, wondering if she possibly misheard the surname, and sets one of her books inside. Just as she closes her locker, she hears Melissa giggling. She closes her locker just in time to see them walking away, arms around each other, Melissa snickering with her hand over her mouth, Drew casting another glance at Veronica. A feeling of dread washes over Veronica, which she tries to push away on her walk to homeroom.

“Hey Veronica.” She stops in the hallway, suppressing a groan. She and Heather Chandler haven’t spoken at all since she promised to destroy her, but she’s felt her presence the whole time, watching her like she’s a goldfish in a tiny bowl, ramming her stupid head against the glass. She doesn’t turn around, waiting until Chandler decides to come up to her herself, Duke and MacNamara behind her. “Get up to anything fun at the weekend?”

“Maybe,” is her response, her hand curling into a fist. “I went out.”

“How nice,” she replies, feigning shock. The feeling of dread intensifies; surely she doesn’t know about her and JD? She’s not really omnipresent and all knowing-right? “With anyone special?”

“Do you want something, Heather?” she sighs. She dislikes how there’s such little force behind her words, but she’s simply too tired to get into a fight with Heather today-or probably any day really. “I thought you were done with me. You made that rather clear at Ram’s party.”

“Well, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today,” she notes with a bemused tone. “Just wanted to check up on your weekend. Kurt and Ram only have good things to say.”

“Kurt and Ram?” she asks. “What would they know about me? Or my weekend?”

“From what we hear, you three all got rather well-acquainted on Saturday night,” she replies casually.

“What?” she asks, confusion and panic building in her chest. “Heather what did you-”

“Why would you assume I did something?” she says, hand on chest, mock hurt on her face. “From what Kurt and Ram are you saying, you were the one who did something noteworthy. Two things if what they say is true.”

She offers a sickly sweet smile, followed by a split second long glare and turns and walks away, the others following behind her. MacNamara turns and looks over at her, biting her lip delicately. She pauses, like she’s unsure if she should go to Veronica or follow them, but she chooses her real friends, especially when Chandler calls her and she follows them without a look back. They group together against the locker, whispering amongst themselves and Veronica is left in the middle of the hall with a cryptic answer from Heather, an impending feeling of dread and the feeling of everyone’s eyes on her.

In her daze, she doesn’t notice other people walking around until one of the football players walks right into her.

“Oh, sorry,” she says.

“People are walking here, slut,” he spits at her. The word ‘slut’ makes her do a double take. She’s used to being stepped on, metaphorically and literally, but she’s never been called that before. She’s been called the opposite plenty of times. It leaves her gasping for a response, the huddle of football players chuckling as they pass her.

“God, close your mouth, Veronica,” another one says. “You didn’t have it open enough on Saturday night?”

“What?” she asks. She looks up to see the Heathers drinking in the scene before them and storms up to them. “Okay, what did you three do?”

“You need to calm down,” Chandler tells her. “And stop worrying about us. You should be worried about your reputation. Kurt and Ram have been telling everyone about your little three way last night.”

“Three-way?” a voice asks behind her-a voice she recognises instantly. JD stands behind her, his mouth slightly open, looking from her to Heather Chandler.

“There was no three-way!” she insists, angry and frankly, hurt, for a moment that he might have even listened to Heather Chandler over her. “JD you were with me on Saturday night, nothing happened!”

“No, I know,” he says softly. “I know, I’m just-”

“I seem to have heard it differently,” Duke interrupts. “According to Kurt and Ram there was a, quote ‘Big swordfight in your mouth’.”

“A-a what?” Veronica explodes. Her hands start shaking and she stumbles backwards into JD, who grasps her shoulders softly. Before any of them can answer, Kurt and Ram themselves come around the corner, laughing along with the rest of the football team. They clap the two of them on the back, watching them with wide, eager eyes before they see Veronica and skid to a halt. Kurt and Ram’s mouths hang open like dumb goldfish, their eyes looking from Veronica, to each other, to the team around them, and even to the Heathers. A tight, tense silence settles around them and Veronica feels like even the air has been sucked out of that space, leaving them in a vacuum. Her chest tightens even with JD’s hands on her arm. She should yell at them or ask for an explanation or tell the entire idiot team that they’re lying, but all she can seem to do is stand there and try to breathe while her eyes begin to burn.

“Hey, Veronica,” one of the football team, Jackson Andrews, she realises, asks. “Think you’d ever do that for me and a buddy? My buddy Adam and I always wanted to try that out.”

“Try what?” she asks, her voice low and steady despite her shaking hands.

“You know,” he insists, miming at swinging a sword. “The whole… swordfight in your mouth.”

“God, she doesn’t look like she could take two at the same time,” she hears another voice say. She stumbles backwards into JD, who wraps his arms around her chest tightly. Her heart hammers against his arm.

“Sounds crowded if you ask me,” Heather Duke adds.

“Well no one did ask you, Duke,” JD spits back, causing her to glare at him.

“Whatever- see you guys later,” Ram says, pushing past the rest of them. Veronica pulls JD’s arms away from her and follows them, taking in each and every word they were saying as the rest of the team beg for more details.

“We bent her right over!” Kurt tells them. “Like one of those little origami birds. And then we both went south on her.”

“She ate both our big salamis,” Ram adds. “And we were sword fighting right in her mouth. We went right down in her!”

Veronica feels herself fall over her feet and crash into a locker, barely registering the pain, the nausea feeling stronger than anything else. At that moment there is a very real risk of her throwing up in the hallway, which would be the last thing she needs.

“Excuse me!” a sharp, shrill voice barks next to her. Becky Rock, whom she has French with, stands next to her, scowling. “You’re blocking my locker.”

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbles, walking away from it despite her shaking legs.

“God, you really have no respect for other people, do you?” she asks loudly. “Or yourself.” She turns and looks her up and down in disgust. “If you have to make a fool of yourself over the weekend, that’s your business, but not everyone needs to know about it, Veronica.”

“I’m not the one spreading it around!” she protests, but it falls on deaf ears and Becky closes her locker and walks away before Veronica can even tell her that it’s all lies.

“Veronica?” JD asks, appearing at her side and taking her hand. “Veronica, are you okay?” All she can do is shake her head, watching Kurt and Ram and the football team stand. Far away as they are, their voices are smaller, but she knows what they’re saying, and every word is a blow to her already-shattered reputation. She shakes her head and lets JD pull her against her chest, clinging to his arms like a lifeline and snuggling into his embrace as much as she can, even more so when the Heathers pass, Chandler smirking smugly at the sight of Veronica defeated. She wishes she could just bury her face in JD’s chest for the rest of her life. Or just have the ground open and swallow her, that would work too.

“The offer still stands,” Chandler says to JD. “If you tire of her, you know where to find me. I have dignity, at least.”

“Bite me, Heather,” he spits at her. Chandler narrows her eyes at him for a split second before she stalks away, and Veronica smiles despite it all. It doesn’t last, and it feels wrong but it does feel good to watch Heather Chandler have to realise she can’t have any boy she wants.

As they leave, MacNamara hangs back, hovering uncertainly between Veronica and the other Heathers, her eyes wide as she picks at her perfectly manicured nails and bites her lip.

“Heather!” Chandler calls. “Come on.” MacNamara nods and gives Veronica an apologetic look before she runs after the others.

“Come on,” Veronica says, wriggling out of JD’s arms and taking his hand instead. “I need to get to my locker.” JD squeezes her hand gently, keeping close by her side until they reach the locker, where yet another surprise awaits her. The word “SLUT” scrawled across her locker in black marker.

Veronica gasps, and the tears that have been building in her eyes since that morning finally spill over. She covers her mouth to try to make it quieter, but they don’t stop.

“Oh, Ronnie,” JD sighs. He pulls her against him, letting her sob against his chest, his arms tightening around her and his chin resting on the top of her head. Against his chest she lets it get heavier, heaving breaths in between tears while he rubs her back and kisses her head. “Give me a minute,” he whispers in her ear.

 She doesn’t have time to ask what he means before he’s gone, and she turns to see him storming up to Kurt and Ram, his fists already clenched. However, before he can even get a punch in, Jackson grabs his arm from behind, Kurt grabs the other, and he’s left defenceless. Ram’s fist lands in his stomach, causing him to groan painfully, and he punches him again, and again, until he drops to the ground. Kurt comes around the side of him and starts getting kicks in, right in his stomach.

“Stop it!” Veronica shrieks, running towards him, pushing people out of the way to get to Kurt, whom she pushes harshly in the stomach. For a moment she’s scared; he’s twice her size, and if this turns into a fight she’s going to be physically destroyed as well as socially, but she stands in front of JD anyway, her hands shaking, this time in anger. She sees Ram go in to hit him again and she shoves him just as hard as she did Kurt. “Stop it!” She fights off Kurt again; he grabs her shoulder, presumably to push her away to get back to JD and she smacks his hand away. “Leave him alone!”

The crowd around them disperses as the Coach and another teacher Veronica can’t recognise come up, grabbing Kurt and Ram and asking what’s going on, red in the face. Behind them, she sees Mrs Fleming trying to get people to go to class. She stands panting as she watches the crowd get smaller and smaller, people disappearing into classrooms while they each take one last look at JD curled up on the floor with Veronica standing in front of him. Soon nearly everyone, including teachers, leaving her and JD to fend for themselves, leave and they’re alone in the hallway, save for one person in a read jacket with a winning grin on her face.

“You know, you two do make a good couple,” Heather Chandler tells her. “The psycho and the whore.” Veronica bites her lip as her eyes prick and sting with unshed tears.

“Heather… go away,” she says. She wants to sound tough, unbothered, unafraid, but she hears her voice breaking. Heather turns and stalks away, and her and JD are on their own at last. Veronica pushes her hair away from her face, wanting to deal with her hurt boyfriend first and shove her own feelings as far down as she possibly can.

“Oh my God,” she says, turning and kneeling next to him. “Are you okay?” She grasps his arm and helps him get into a kneeling position, thinking back to first aid training in freshman year. “Can you look at me, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he says, even though he’s grimacing and holding his stomach, hissing in pain as he tries to sit up. “What about you?”

“Oh yeah no I’m fine,” she assures him, even as her chin starts wobbling. “I’m awesome, I-” She covers her mouth as the tears spill over and her shoulders start shaking. “I’m sorry about the waterworks.” He cups her cheek with his hand, his thumb wiping away her tears.

“Oh, Ronnie,” he sighs. He pulls her into a tight hug, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. She feels him kiss her cheek as she chokes out sobs, wetting the fabric of his coat. “They made you cry,” he whispers darkly, feeling more to himself than to her, running his hand up and down her back.

“Can we just leave?” she asks into his shoulder. “Just you and me, get into a car and drive away.”

“And miss graduation?” he responds cheekily. He kisses her cheek again, running his fingers gently through her hair. Still in his arms, she checks her watch, seeing they have ten minutes before class. In her mind, that means she only has ten minutes to clean herself up and save what’s left of her dignity.

“Hey,” she says, wriggling out of his embrace and linking their hands together. “I have to go to the bathroom. Wait for me?”

“Of course,” he agrees, kissing her hand. Despite everything, she giggles and heads to the ladies bathroom, finding it mercifully empty. She rolls out some tissue paper, runs it under the cold water and holds it against her eye while taking deep, steady breaths, remembering an old trick from middle school she and Martha used to do on bad days to get rid of the red, blotchy eyes.

“Veronica?” She swears God is mocking her now when her former best friend comes out of one of the stalls and appears next to her, looking up at her with wide eyes through her pink rimmed glasses. Still, it’s the most she’s said to her in two weeks. “Hi.”

“Hey,” she says, running her tissue under the water again and holding it under her other eye. What a way to reunite with your friend.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“Of course,” she lies, knowing that Martha can see right through her. Martha nods, pulling the sleeves of her pink sweater over her hands.

“Um, I heard in the halls what they’re saying about you.” Great, Veronica thinks. Now in Martha’s mind, she’s a slut as well as a traitor. She knows that truthfully, she deserves it, but if this is some cosmic karma from the universe, she’d like it if the universe dialled it down a notch. “It’s not true, is it?”

“Of course not,” she sighs. “I have a boyfriend, Martha.”

“You do?” she asks, smiling slightly. Veronica realises that for a minute, she forgot that she hasn’t been sharing every detail of her life with her for the past two weeks. “That’s exciting.”

“I guess,” she agrees.

“I knew it,” Martha adds. “Not the boyfriend thing. But I knew what Kurt and Ram were saying were wrong.”

“You did?” she asks, putting down the wet tissue and turning to look at Martha properly. “How?”

“I know you,” she answers. “I know you’d not do anything like that. Especially not with Kurt and Ram.” Veronica thinks about her night with JD and blushes when she thinks about what Martha would say to that. But she’s still half right. “I can’t believe they said that about you.”

“Yeah, well,” she sighs. She doesn’t want to tell Martha how much of a dick Ram is, knowing that she’s still half in love with him, so she keeps her mouth shut. “Martha, I know I said it before but I’m so, so sorry about what I did.”

“I know. And I forgive you.”

“You do?” she asks. “Why?”

“Because I know how much you regret it,” Martha answers, grabbing her hand and smiling sheepishly. “And because I’m miserable without you. I miss you. And besides, I think I’ve punished you long enough.”

“I missed you too,” she admits. “So much.” Smiling, Martha jumps up and wraps her arms around her in a tight up, standing up on her toes. Veronica laughs slightly, hugging her friend back just as tightly. Her eyes get misty again, but this time she’s not upset. When she and Martha pull apart, Martha chuckles and helps wipe her tears away.

“I’m going to homeroom, you coming?” she asks. She squeezes Veronica’s hand gently.

“I’ll meet you there,” she says. “Just give me a minute. I have to go talk to…” She bites her lip, her cheeks turning pink. “JD.”

“JD,” Martha repeats sheepishly. “Your… boyfriend, JD?”

“Yeah,” Veronica admits, giggling slightly. Martha’s mouth falls open slightly, but she giggles along with her. Veronica pushes her hair away from her face. “It’s still kind of new, but-”

“You really like him?”

“Yeah,” she admits. “I promise I’ll tell you everything about it. Swear.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you later.” She turns and heads out the door on the way to homeroom. Veronica bites her lip, unable to keep the smile off her face. She checks her reflection in the mirror; her eyes are normal, not a trace of red that shouldn’t be there. Seeing that her hair is a bit unruly, she takes a brush out of her bag and runs it through it, making herself more presentable before leaving, finding JD standing against her locker, just where she left him. He looks at the floor, his eyes dark and unreadable, his lips rolled into a thin line as he presses his fist into the palm of his hand.

“JD?” she asks, grabbing his shoulder. “Hey, JD?” He lets out a long breath at her touch, turning to look at her. She sees more clarity in his eyes this time.

“Hey,” he says, placing his hand over hers. “Are you okay?”

“I am now,” she admits, still grinning.

“You look it,” he says, taking her cheek in his hand, running his thumb over cheek. “Something happen?”

“Actually, yes,” she admits. “I ran into Martha in the bathroom and well… we sort of made up.”

“You did?” he asks, smiling softly. “That’s great, Ronnie.”

“Yeah,” she says, tapping her toe against the floor and turning it slightly. “And I was thinking… what if ate lunch in the cafeteria today? Maybe with Martha?” She sees JD’s smile falter slightly and winces. “Or we can just-”

“It’s fine, Veronica,” he says. “That’d be great.”

“Really?”

“Would Martha be okay with it?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, I think she’ll be. I’ll ask her in homeroom.” Just as she finishes, the bell rings, signalling the beginning of class.

“Great.” He kisses the top of her head gently. “I’ll see you in study hall.”

“Okay,” she says, letting him squeeze her hand before he heads off to homeroom and she goes in the opposite direction.

Slipping in after the bell earns her a dirty look from her teacher, and the rumour swirling around means most of her classmates either whisper amongst themselves as she passes or casting her dirty looks or avoiding her gaze entirely. It hurts, she won’t deny it hurts, but it hurts less when Martha turns and smiles at her and walks with her to her next class, as if the last two weeks never happened at all and they’re back where they began.

                                                                                                *****

At lunch, instead of waiting for JD in the courtyard, Veronica runs into Martha in the hall and they head to the cafeteria together. Walking into the cafeteria after two weeks of avoiding it like it was a plague-filled cesspool (which may not have been an unfitting metaphor) was an odd experience to say the least. Despite the fact that most people were too involved in their own lives and conversations to look at Veronica, her skin still crawled with the feeling of people’s eyes on her, especially when people skirt around her as she’s on her way to the table. Martha walks beside her, rubbing her arm comfortingly, and while she’s not exactly a shield in the same way JD is, having Martha in her corner shows her she’s not alone, someone she can just turn to and hold and know she’s not fine, but she has someone holding her up and stopping her from just falling off the edge entirely.

They take a seat at their old table, which is thankfully far away from the Heathers’ table and Veronica silently endures the sideways glances from students passing by, making her cross her arms over her chest. People still sit at their table, but at the very end, far from them, as if Veronica and Martha carry some infectious social disease.

“I can leave, you know,” Veronica says.

“What?”

“You can leave,” she repeats. “Or I can. No one’s talking to me now.” She cranes her neck and sees Betty two tables away from her. “Even Betty. I don’t want to drag you down with me.”

“Hey,” Martha says, taking her hand. “I’d go down with you.”

Veronica grins, remembering the Heathers’ “guarantee” that if Martha had the chance to join their clique, she’d take it. She isn’t sure if she ever really believed them, but if she did, she kicks herself for it. She places her hand on top of Martha’s.

“You’re the best,” she says. Martha’s cheeks turn pink and she shakes her head, avoiding Veronica’s eyes as she takes her lunch out of her bag. Veronica takes hers out too, but she finds she can’t focus on her food as she puts all her energy into anxiously scanning the crowd for JD. He shouldn’t be too hard to spot; even disregarding how she feels about him, he’s not the type to blend into the background. His black coat doesn’t blend well with the mixes of colours the other students choose to wear. She chews on one of her nails-a habit the Heathers tried hard to break her out of-glancing up at the clock; it’s still early in the lunch period, but that doesn’t stop her from worrying, doesn’t stop the pit in her stomach that lingers every second he’s not there. She tries to recall his schedule; he wasn’t in social studies, she’s in that with him, and she’s pretty sure he has English with MacNamara and she’s already here, so he can’t have been in there.

“Are you okay?” Martha asks, noticing Veronica’s untouched sandwich.

“Yeah,” Veronica sighs, taking her nail out of her mouth. “Just waiting for JD.” She turns to Martha, partially to get herself to stop looking at that damn door. “Are you sure you’re okay with JD sitting with us?”

“Of course,” Martha says, but the smile doesn’t quite reach her ears. “He is your boyfriend. Why wouldn’t I be?” Veronica wants to press on, but she doesn’t, instead just opting for nodding.

“Thanks,” she decides to say instead. “For being so cool about this.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” she tells her, nudging her with her elbow. “Besides, I want to get to know this boyfriend. I knew you’d get one first.” Veronica shakes her head. She can almost always tell what Martha’s thinking, but she wouldn’t need to to know what, or rather who, she’s thinking about. If she was bolder, she’d tell Martha that Ram Sweeney is a no-good, lying, slut-shaming idiot, but she doesn’t, rubbing her shoulder before turning back around.

When she looks up, she finally spots JD, looking around the cafeteria. She lifts her hand and waves to get him to notice her, and he comes over to their table, sitting on the seat opposite Veronica, regarding her with a warm, gentle smile and nodding at Martha.

“Hi,” he says to her.

“Hey,” she replies, pulling her sweater sleeves over her fingers. They fall into silence, a silence that makes Veronica bite the inside of her cheek, a heavy weight pulling at her stomach. JD and Martha avoid each other’s eyes and Veronica begins to question if this was such a good idea after all.

“So,” Martha begins delicately. “JD, when did you start going to school here?”

“About three weeks ago,” JD replies. “But I knew I’d be going here before I even started moving. It’s the only high school around here, and it was either here or I get a 45 minute bus every day. Which I didn’t exactly like.”

“Oh,” Martha says. “So… how did you and Veronica end up together?”

It’s then that Veronica chokes on her water, spluttering wildly, her face growing red as every minute of her and JD’s night together passes back through her mind, intimate details of them together replaying over and over, the feel of their bodies against each other, the sound of JD calling out her name, the way his skin felt under her lips-

She looks over at JD, whose mouth hangs open, small pained noises coming out of it and she guesses he’s thinking what she is thinking.

“Sorry, stupid question,” Martha says. “It’s fine, you guys don’t have to-”

“Uh, no Martha, it’s fine,” Veronica stammers, looking helplessly at JD, silently begging for an explanation.

“Well, after Veronica left the Homecoming party, she and I ran into each other on the street,” JD says, speaking slowly as though carefully choosing his words.  “I was on my way back from… the 7/11. And I saw that she was upset, so I took her back to my place. Let her stay over.” He leaves it there, despite Martha’s wide eyed nodding, and Veronica kicks him under the table, raising her eyebrows to him and making a minute hand gesture that only he could see in an attempt to tell him to keep going. Maybe it’s a tad too far, maybe Martha, unlike the Heathers, wouldn’t think anything of it, but the phrase ‘stayed over at his place’ has acquired different meanings in her mind in the past month. “Ow! Uh, and we just fell asleep watching TV.”

“Oh,” Martha says again, a soft grin on her face. “That’s kind of romantic.” Veronica giggles and nods in agreement, sharing a glance with JD. He grins at her and it makes something in her chest flutter, their secret still safe between them for now. “So JD, what do you think of Sherwood? I bet it’s weird coming back here.”

“I guess,” he shrugs, tearing the crusts off his sandwich. “Not a lot changed, though.”

“Yeah, not a lot ever does,” Veronica sighs before she can even think about what she’s saying. “Hence why I’m counting down to the day we graduate.” Once she admits it, she wishes she hadn’t. Despite her telling Martha many times how she has her future planned out far away from Westerberg, Martha’s smile is always smaller, never quite reaching her ears, a sadness lurking behind her eyes even when she insists she’ll come visit Veronica and sat next to her as she looked at Harvard, Duke and Brown’s prospectuses. As a result, Veronica finds herself talking about it less and less. JD says nothing, appearing to be biting the inside of his cheek, realisation dawning on him.

“Why did you leave anyway?” Martha asks JD. “Your dad’s job?”

“Yeah, my dad’s something,” he says darkly, an empty, humourless grin on his face. Veronica feels her gut twist uneasily and wipes her suddenly-sweaty hand on her skirt. The anger she sees brewing in JD’s eyes chases away the easy feeling she’d like to think she’d have having lunch with her best friend and boyfriend. Even though it fades as he takes a deep breath, raking a hand through his dark curls, she still feels uneasy. “I don’t live with him anymore.”

“Oh,” Martha repeats. “I-I’m sorry-” JD waves his hand dismissively with a crooked smile.

“It’s fine,” he says flatly, looking sheepishly at Veronica for a moment. “I’m better-it’s fine.” Martha nods, her pink lips in an ‘o’ shape as she processes the bomb JD dropped on her.

“So… have either of you got your grades from that English quiz yet?” she asks innocently. Veronica sighs, the air around her feeling lighter as the conversation takes a much more mundane and pleasant turn. JD chats along as normally as anyone else, stealing affectionate glances across the table. He even sneaks a little game of footsie with her under the table, making her try not to blush as they discuss the upcoming American history essay. She laughs and chats and eats and smiles and for half an hour, everything is almost pushed right out of her mind. Soon the bell will ring and she’ll be in French, across a classroom from Heather Chandler, with around two dozen people who think she’s a slut, and for the next week she’ll probably avoid her locker entirely. But for now, she can pretend she’s fine.

                                                                                                ******

She has study hall after French, and by that point her mood has fallen dramatically. Hardly anyone in French class would so much as look at her, and those who did were jocks who raised eyebrows at her. Even the girls she’d considered to be the kind ones had avoided her as she walked to her seat with her head down. Heather didn’t say a word to her the entire class, barely giving her a look, but she didn’t need to. She floats above the chaos she made out of Veronica’s life.

So naturally when she gets to study hall, she feels just as deflated as she did before lunch. She sits down at the first desk she can and takes out her French book, ready to distract herself with the future tense of verbs, when she feels a tap on her shoulder and turns to see the student behind her passing her a note with a confused shrug. When she takes it from him, she recognises the handwriting instantly. Sure enough, when she turns around, JD in three seats behind her, one row to the left. He looks up from his book and salutes her with his finger.

 _‘I am so fucking bored,’_ the note reads.

 _‘Me too,’_ she replies, turning around and passing the note back to him.

 _‘Bathroom break?’_ reads the note that lands on her desk not a minute later. She turns and looks at him. He shrugs, pouting slightly.

_‘Hell yeah.’_

She passes it back again and his reply is almost instant.

 _‘Follow my lead. Wait five minutes.’_ She frowns, watching as JD approaches the teacher’s desk, hearing him ask in a low voice to go to the bathroom, being responded to with a grunt and nod. As he passes her desk, he gives her a sly wink, casting his eyes back up to the clock. Veronica nods in understanding and spends the next five minutes glancing back up at the clock in between doing her homework. When it finally passes, she asks to go to the bathroom, and is met with the same barely-there response as JD was.

She finds him standing next to the bathrooms, toying with the silver ring on his thumb, his face breaking out into a smile as she approaches. She takes his hand, letting him hold it against her chest and run his thumb up and down hers.

“Hey,” she sighs, leaning against the wall.

“Hey yourself,” he says, kissing the back of her hand. “How are you doing? You seemed a little upset when you came into study hall.”

“Was it that obvious?” she groans, making him laugh.

“Your last class was bad?” he asks. She nods silently, not trusting herself to speak. “Anyone say anything to you?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s the thing. No one has to.” JD presses a kiss to her forehead and pulls her against her chest. It’s only when she closes her eyes she even realises she has started to cry again. Heather Chandler’s presence lingers around her even though she’s alone. She hates herself for letting her win, hates feeling so weak. But at least she can hold JD and pretend she’s strong.

“I can’t believe they did that to you,” he sighs. “What if we-” He cuts off abruptly, shaking his head and tightening his hold on her.

“What if we what?” she asks, her cheek pressed against him.

“Nothing,” he says. It’s her turn to shake her head as she wriggles out of his arms to look at him.

“J?” she asks. “What is it?”

“I was going to say… what if we got them back?” he asks. “Made them regret it?”

“The whole school?” she says.

“No. Just Kurt and Ram,” he says. “I know it’s-”

“Awesome,” she finishes. She feels a tingle of excitement run up her spine, JD’s arms around her waist like a shield as he grins back at her. She should be ashamed, maybe a while ago she would have, maybe she will when they do it, but right now, all she can feel is the thrill of putting Kurt and Ram in their places. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this chapter was actually meant to include JD and Veronica going after Kurt and Ram and then my word count was at 7000. So NEXT chapter they go after them, and Veronica sees a new side of JD.


	7. Chapter 7

On Friday, Veronica’s last class is Economics, along with Martha. After weeks of painfully enduring Martha’s stony, pitiful silence and wondering if she could honestly sit through it every Friday until graduation, getting to talk with her and compare notes and look at in confusion when she couldn’t get something (which was more often than she liked to admit; Martha was the one who was good at this kind of stuff, sometimes all Veronica could see were just numbers and words with no link to each other). When class finishes, they take their time packing, feeling no rush. While Veronica knows JD is waiting for her at his class, she has a feeling he won’t mind waiting for her.

“You want to come around to my house tonight?” Martha asks, slinging her back onto her shoulder. “My dad’s not working tonight so he can run us down to the video store.”

“Sorry, I have plans,” Veronica answers. “JD and I are hanging out.” Martha smiles gently, her eyes sparkling behind her large glasses.

“Anything exciting?” she asks casually, twirling strands of her brown hair around her finger. Veronica chuckles; Martha, innocent as she is, definitely doesn’t think what most people would think when they ask that question, and she loves her for it.

“I don’t know,” she says, a pang of guilt hitting her chest. She still can’t bring herself to tell Martha exactly what she and JD have planned for tonight and she can’t quite put her finger on why that is; maybe it’s because Martha’s moral compass is as rigid as they come, her heart big enough for every student at Westerberg, and Veronica frankly doesn’t want to deal with her attempting to talk her out of it. Or she might be wanting to avoid Martha’s loyalties being divided between her lifelong friend and her lifelong crush. Or, it occurs to her out of nowhere, maybe she’s not sure she wants Martha to know about this vengeful side of her, or of JD for that matter. “We’ll probably just watch a movie at his place. But we’ll hang soon,” she promises, meaning it this time, feeling a change in her words from the half-hearted, flippant words of her Heathers days. Sometimes she wishes she could burn away those weeks entirely, erase that time from her own memory and of everyone else in the school, hell, the whole town. “Are you doing anything next weekend?”

“No,” she says with a smile, shaking her head so that her brown ponytail falls over her shoulder.

“Okay, then next Saturday, we can do movie night,” she suggests. “And we can do it at my place. As long as you bring the Jiffy Pop.”

“Perfect,” Martha answers, her smile lighting up her face and the entire hallway. Veronica chuckles, bumping her arm against Martha’s. She pulls her arms tighter around her, clutching her textbooks closer to her chest. “And we don’t have to watch The Princess Bride if you don’t want to.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to?” she asks, her smile dropping.

“Well, because we’ve watched it so many times,” she explains. “And you’re right, maybe I have it memorised. We can watch something older if you want.”

“No,” she says quickly, grabbing Martha’s hand. “Come on, The Princess Bride is awesome. No matter how many times we watch it.”

“Are you sure?” she asks softly. “I mean-did the Heathers ever watch it?” Veronica supresses a groan, painfully ashamed of herself.

“No, they didn’t,” she admits. “That’s why they were so boring to hang out with.”

“The Heathers? Boring?” Martha asks, a hint of a smile on her face.

“Yeah,” she admits, not entirely lying but if she’s honest, not being entirely truthful either, finding a rather unhappy, slightly uncomfortable middle. “We can watch the Princess Bride. And anything else.”

“Okay,” Martha agrees. “Next Saturday.” Not too far off, Veronica sees the familiar long trench coat and curly hair and long legs. He glances up and sees her immediately-not like there’s a crowd to try to find her in. He gives her a smile as she approaches and extends the same to Martha. While the first day they started having lunch together was awkward to say the least, and the one after wasn’t much better, she feels him warming up to Martha. She guesses they must talk when they have English together, because yesterday they were going over their essay assignments, with JD even giving Martha pointers on Moby Dick, with her hastily writing them down on her notepad. Conversation has been becoming easier between the three by the day, the awkward tension slowly but surely fizzling out.

“Hey, you,” he greets. “Hey, Martha.”

“Hi,” she replies, shuffling from one foot to the other awkwardly. Veronica feel that tension may have been fading out slowly but surely, but the hard part is that ‘slowly’ is the operative word there. “Um, I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

“Sure, see you later,” Veronica says, hugging her quickly and lightly, like they have been doing since probably the very beginning of high school, before she scurries off to the main door. Veronica leans back against the wall next to JD, their fingers linking between them. The small grin on his face makes her laugh again. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Just… I don’t know, you two are cute.”

“Cute?” she echoes, scrunching up her nose.

“Maybe not cute,” he admits. “I’m just glad you’re friends with her again.”

“Yeah, me too,” she says. “And the irony is it was all because of that rumour.”

“Speaking of which,” he tugs at her hand and pulls her off the wall, the both of them chuckling. “Come on.”

They leave out one of the side doors, JD telling her it’s easier to get to his house that way. As they walk down the streets, at first hand in hand, then arm in arm, Veronica begins to recognise the neighbourhood.

“I think Heather Mac lives around here,” she remarks.

“She does?” JD asks. “I haven’t seen her, but I guess we don’t exactly traverse the same social circles.”

“Still,” she points out, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “It’s a nice part of town. My mom wanted to live here, but the real estate was too pricey, so she got stuck on my street.” She tells JD about the roses being stolen from her neighbour’s garden, which gets a laugh out of him.

“Maybe that’s why they thought I should live here,” he remarks as they go up the steps to his porch. “Keep me away from ruffians who steal roses from sweet old ladies.” He opens the door and leads her into the lit hallway. “They didn’t count on girls climbing into my bedroom window though.”

“You’re never letting that go, are you?” she asks. He hums and shakes his head, making her laugh her usual too loud, too obnoxious sounding laugh. He kisses her gently, cupping her face with his hand. It’s brief; he pulls away after only a few seconds before going to the kitchen and leaning on the doorframe. Claire is sitting at the table, glasses on, apparently going over some papers. She looks up when JD knocks on the wood.

“Veronica’s here,” he announces.

“Hi Claire,” Veronica says, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Hi honey,” Claire greets softly, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.

“Working hard?” JD asks.

“Yep-too hard,” she replies. “So how was school?”

“Fine, I guess. We’ll be upstairs,” JD tells her, turning to leave, Veronica taking his hand and following him up.

“Door stays open!” Claire calls.

“Oh my god!” JD exclaims. “What does she think we’d even be doing?” he asks Veronica in a pained whisper. Veronica chuckles and sits down on his bed as he takes off his coat, not bothering to close the door.

Veronica looks around his room; she realises she hadn’t really looked at it the last time she was in here. It’s fairly bare; blue walls and a black and white checked bedspread, the shelves above the fireplace and bed lined with books and not much else. His desk is tucked in the corner, papers and books and pens haphazardly placed around it.

“Yeah, it’s um, I don’t really have a lot of stuff,” he admits, sitting on the bed next to her. He picks up a discarded t-shirt and inexpertly tosses it into the laundry basket; it lands half in half out. “I should’ve cleaned up a little.”

“It’s fine,” she says, bumping her knee against his. “I think I made enough of a mess last time I was here.” JD laughs, rubbing his hand over her shoulder before getting up and lifting a cardboard box up from the floor and placing it on the bed. He lifts out a black camera with a leather strap, wiggling it for good measure. Veronica raises her eyebrows and kneels up on the bed. She knows little to nothing about cameras, but she guesses it’s a fairly good brand, and it’s in good condition.

“A little going-away present from the kids in my old home,” he tells her. “And a crucial part of her plan.”

“So… we’re going to photograph them naked or something?” she asks, holding up the camera and looking at JD through the lens. He pokes his tongue out at her. She feels her finger press down on something and jumps as she hears a shutter click and a picture being printed. JD laughs and gently lifts it off the camera before shaking it around a little and pressing it into his palm.

“Exactly.”

“Pretty sure that’s illegal, J,” she points out. “And morally reprehensible.”

“Only if we distribute the photos,” he replies. “Which we are not. And we don’t even have to get them naked. That’s juvenile. Just looking stupid.”

“Is that really that hard?” she replies, wrinkling her nose, making him laugh.

“No,” he answers, still smiling. “All we need is them looking dumb enough to get them to listen to us.”

“So… how do we do that?” she asks.

“I… don’t know,” he confesses. “I was kind of hoping we could think of something.”

“Aw, you’re so romantic,” she teases, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards her, pondering. “I might have an idea….”

“What is it?” he asks.

“What if we got them-Okay this is kind of terrible,” she laughs, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “And maybe impossible. But what if we like, got them in the woods behind the park?”

“I’m listening,” he says, kneeling down in front of her, resting his chin on the bed. She lies down on her stomach so that their faces are level.

“Okay, well what if we got them like, I don’t know, stuck up a tree or something?” she suggests. “All dangling and helpless.”

“Now there’s an idea,” he says, poking her cheek gently, pressing the tip of his finger into the dimple in her cheek, frowning just slightly as she sees an idea coming together behind his eyes. “And building on that….”

“What is it?” she asks, a tingle running up her spine despite herself.

“What if instead of being stuck up a tree, they dangled from a tree?”

“Seriously?” she asks, and he nods at her with an excited, wolfish grin. Veronica herself is unsure if she should grin back or let her mouth hang open. “JD, can we even do that?”

“All we need to do is get our hands on some rope,” he explains. “And…” He gets up and her eyes follow him to his bookshelf, watching him silently mutter under his breath until he finds what he was looking for. He brings a red, hard backed book back to Veronica, holding it between them.

“Every Boy’s Guide To The Wilderness,” she reads aloud, raising an eyebrow at him, noticing its remarkable difference from the volumes of classic novels and poetry sitting on his bookshelf and hiding in the corners of his bookbag and cardboard boxes. “Did you pick this one yourself?”

“I saw it in some old bookstore a few years ago. I thought it might come in handy,” he tells her. “It’s actually not a bad read. It’s got a lot of handy tips in case you ever want to take a trip to the great outdoors. Including…” He flips through the pages and turns it towards Veronica. She sits up on her knees and grabs the book to get a better look at the page, which details how to tie a rope perfect for trapping woodland animals.

“How far back does this book date exactly?” she asks. “1874?”

“It’s traditional,” he admits, shrugging. “But what do you think?”

“I think,” she says, running her fingers gently through his hair. “That you’re something of an evil genius.” He laughs and closes the gap between them for a kiss. They sit up together, her cupping his cheeks with her hands while he places his hands on her waist, tilting his head just slightly to deepen the kiss. She hears him make a small, contented noise against her lips and it makes her smile and shift her position. They have to break apart for a moment as she moves, sitting on the bed and wrapping her legs around his waist, her head tilted up to him as they resume kissing.

“Shit!” JD exclaims, pushing Veronica away from him and stumbling backwards. Leaning up on her hands, Veronica barely as time to ask him what’s wrong-or why he felt the need to push her violently back onto the bed-before the door is pushed open.

“Hey kids,” Claire says cheerfully. “Are you guys hungry?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” JD answers, rubbing the back of his neck. “Veronica?”

“Oh, I’m okay thanks,” she says, offering Claire a grateful smile.

“Well okay,” she replies delicately. “Well if you change your minds I’m downstairs.”

“I won’t, thanks,” JD says flatly. Veronica watches as Claire nods and heads downstairs, leaving the door open more than a crack. She turns to JD, biting her lip in a failed attempt to stop herself from giggling as he leans against the wall, looking at his boots.

“Cut her some slack,” she tells him, reaching her hand out to him, which he takes and pulls her up. “She’s just taking care of you.”

“I know,” he sighs, still avoiding her eyes. “I know. Just… Kind of wish I had my own space.” Veronica isn’t convinced that’s all there is to it, but she doesn’t push it, instead pressing her lips to his gently. She hopes she’s letting him know that she can be his safe space if that’s what he wants. He rubs their noses together, letting out a short breath.

“Why don’t I call Ram?” she asks, her fingers curling into his jacket. “Let him know what I want to do tomorrow morning?”

“Sounds amazing,” he replies, following her over to his bedside phone. Her heart hammers against her ribs and she’s unsure if it’s the thrill of the act or the worry she and JD might get caught, but she finds herself liking it either way. JD giggles as she makes the call and she has to hit him with the pillow to shut him up, which only makes her laugh herself.

“See you there,” she says after Kurt and Ram enthusiastically agree, their stunned silence followed a stammering “yes we’d love that”. Veronica takes the receiver and holds it between her and JD, pressing her finger to her lips as they wait for just one word from them.

“Dude, free pussy!” Kurt says.

“And we don’t even have to buy it a pizza!” Ram replies. Veronica pulls a face and hangs up the receiver.

“Gross,” she says, making an exaggerated shudder. She wasn’t wholly joking; Kurt and Ram had been getting under her skin for pretty much all of high school, even more so when she had been hanging out with them via the Heathers.

“Indeed,” JD agrees, but she still giggles, leaning into his shoulder. She feels herself falling backwards as JD pulls her down onto her bed, only making her laugh harder. She shouldn’t think it, but she knows her revenge on Ram and Kurt will be sweet. And maybe it’s about time someone gave them a taste of their own medicine; why not her?

                                                                                    ******

Veronica meets JD in the woods early enough in the morning, still rubbing sleep out of her eye, suddenly wishing she had planned their prank to happen around mid-afternoon. JD seems perfectly fine, playfully hitting Veronica with the rope he had bought from a hardware store on the way here.

“What did you tell Claire you were doing?” she asks as she holds his book upright for him so he can tie the ropes properly. “Somehow I doubt ‘revenge plan against the school’s resident assholes’ was met with a lot of approval.”

“I told her that me and you were taking a morning stroll through the woods,” he tells her, frowning at the knot and untying it again. Veronica looks around her, taking in the pink hue to the sky, the falling golden leaves scattered along the green grass, dirt paths made by trampling feet twisting and winding through it. She hadn’t come into the woods much, not since her Girl Scout days anyway.

“It’s a nice place,” she remarks. “Maybe it would be nice taking a walk in here.”

“The woods?” JD answers, looking up from his task, silently considering it. “Yeah, I guess it is.” She sighs deeply in frustration and almost immediately sees his mind beginning to work, a smile spreading across his face. “Maybe we can go on walks here. It’ll be romantic. People do that in books.”

“Go on walks in woods?” she asks, trying to remember any romance novels she had read and if walks through the woods were part of it.

“Yeah,” he says, tugging on the rope, nodding in satisfaction. “You know, the man and the woman go on a springtime stroll in the forest. The birds sing, the little squirrels dance at their feet-”

“Oh, come on,” she replies. “That’s Snow White, not a romance novel.”

“Never saw that movie,” he says, standing up. “I have read a lot of books, and that’s how they courted women back in the old days. Holding hands was basically third base.” Veronica laughs, but the first part of what he said sticks out to her.

“You haven’t seen Snow White?” she asks.

“Never got the chance, I guess,” he says. “A lot of places I lived weren’t really for movie-watching.”

“Oh that’s it,” she decides. “Sometime I’m taking you to my place and we’re watching every Disney movie you haven’t seen.”

“A movie date?” he asks, grinning. “I like the sound of that.” Veronica promises to herself it won’t be a meaningless promise; she swears to make it a reality in the near future, her and JD curled up on her bed, popcorn between them and a stack of videos at her side. Maybe not in her room, her parents would never allow her being alone in her room with a boy, even if she told a tiny white lie about them being ‘just friends’.

“JD,” she begins carefully. “Does Claire know that we’re…” She gestures in between them, the words dancing on her tongue but too timid to slip out. “Together?”

“Together?” he echoes, chuckling. “No, I haven’t really told her yet. I kind of want to keep this…” He gestures to the two of them, just as she had done. “Private a little while longer. Plus I’m still sort of… testing the water with her, I guess.”

“Testing the water?” she asks, worry turning her stomach.

“Yeah,” he admits with a slightly regretful tone. “It’s not that bad. Sometimes it just takes a while to get to know a foster parent. To trust them.” She feels her face drop slightly and he must notice it, because he takes her face in his hand and uses his thumb to poke the corner of her mouth, trying to make her smile. “It’s fine, Veronica. It happens with so many foster kids.” She nods, letting the smile he put on her face stay there.

“Claire seems great though,” she tries, feeling stupid. He nods, his face uncertain.

When she spies two people approaching, Veronica realises the irony of her being glad to see Ram and Kurt. JD squeezes her hand and runs behind the tree, tossing leaves over the rope. JD had (after a few failed attempts that made Veronica laugh so hard her stomach had begun to hurt) tossed the rope over a high enough branch for it to become invisible, he had instructed her to get Kurt and Ram to stand right at that spot where the rope was concealed while he stood behind, one hand on the rest of the rope, the other holding his camera.

“Hi… Veronica,” Kurt says, puffing his chest out. Veronica’s tongue pokes out the corner of her mouth, her eyes darting to the concealed circle of rope in front of her. They’re just a few feet away from where they need to be.

“So…” Ram continues, flipping his hair out of his face in a way she supposes she is meant to find attractive. “You want us to just take it all off?” Apparently it wasn’t a question, because he’s already taking off his track jacket, slipping it over his shoulders slowly, licking his lips in an exaggerated motion. Kurt suddenly clocks onto what he’s doing and does the same, unbuttoning his shirt.

“Won’t you leave me a little fun?” she says, her voice higher than normal, emulating the voice she had seen Heather MacNamara used when she tries to get boys to do what she wants, mostly giving her the answers to quizzes. She bats her eyes for the full effect.

“Fun?” Ram echoes, his jacket falling to the ground without a word. “What fun?”

“Let… me… strip… you,” she tells him. At her request, they exchange open mouthed looks of glee before turning their heads back to her.

“Really?” Kurt asks, beginning to bounce on his feet.

“Really,” she says. “Just step a little further for me?” They do as she asks, pushing each other side to be one fraction of an inch closer to her. She looks behind the tree, taking a few seconds to find JD in the shadows. “Little bit more…. And perfect.”

The next thing Veronica sees is Kurt and Ram being hoisted in the air, flipping upside down so quickly it makes her dizzy. They must have bumped their heads together as the sound of their pained yells echoes up and down the road, bouncing off of trees. She sees them ending up against each other, their hair falling towards the ground, and their shirts riding up and exposing their midriffs and then their stomachs. Veronica can’t even feel bad for laughing. Maybe she will later, but now all she can do is laugh and feel some form of victory at how pathetic they look.

“JD?” she calls out, looking over to where he was hiding.

“Right here, baby,” he assures her, whipping out his camera, ignoring Kurt and Ram’s pleas to put it down. The flash goes off, then two more for good measure. He hands Veronica two of the printed out pictures and keeps one for himself. She notices him shaking it in his hand and copies him.

“Now,” he says. “You two idiots have something to say to Veronica?”

“You weren’t inviting us here for a threesome?” Ram states, offended.

“No, I wasn’t,” she confirms with a shake of her head.

“Aw!” he replies. Veronica rolls her eyes.

“Anything else you want to say to her?” JD says.

“You’re rude!” Kurt says. “Lying about threesomes isn’t cool!”

“Well neither is spreading rumours about her,” JD points out. “Or lying about your sex life! Or getting the school to call her a whore.” He marches up to them, Veronica a little behind him. “So I ask again… do you have something you want to say to her?”

“Not really,” Ram mumbles. “Only when people find out about this at school, you two are toast.”

“Okay,” JD says. “You two do that and we can distribute these photos to the rest of the school.”

“No way!” Kurt says. “You wouldn’t do that!”

“Maybe I wouldn’t,” JD says. “Unless you tell Veronica three little words.”

“What? What? We’ll say it just get us down from here,” Ram begs. “It hurts!”

“Dear God, this is teetering on hopeless,” he whispers to Veronica. “Apologise!”

“Fine! We’re sorry, Veronica!” Ram exclaims as his face turns red.

“Yeah, we are,” Kurt agrees. “Really, really sorry!”

“And,” Veronica speaks up, stepping around and in front of JD. “You’re going to tell everyone at school that rumour was fake, right?”

“Oh come on, we can’t,” Kurt pleads. “We’d be a laughingstock!”

“If that’s what you want,” JD says. “Then we can distribute these around the school. This one here is particularly charming.” Veronica leans on his shoulder to see what he means; the photo is of Ram’s mouth open in either a scream of a gasp while Kurt’s face is scrunched up. She giggles behind her hand; he’s not wrong, it is quite charming.

“Okay fine!” Kurt says. “Deal.”

“Thanks,” Veronica says, pushing her hair away from her face with a triumphant smile. “JD, cut them down.”

“We don’t have to,” he points out, shrugging.

“Cute,” she laughs. “Seriously though, let’s just let them go.”

“Yeah, let us go, man,” Ram adds. “We promise we’ll tell everyone what really happened.” For a moment, JD doesn’t move, looking darkly at Ram and Kurt, and Veronica feels something clench in her stomach as she looks at his unreadable, conflicted eyes.

“JD?” she asks, tugging on the sleeves of her jacket, an unsettling feeling forming in her stomach. “JD?”

“Yeah,” he says, firstly to himself, and then more to her. “Yeah, I’ll get them down.” She watches as he runs behind the tree and begins untying the rope. “You two might want to brace yourselves.” They fall to the ground with an audible thump that makes Veronica wince. Despite the cool air, she feels far too warm. They scramble to untie the rope and jump to their feet.

“You two are crazy,” Kurt says, glaring at them both before running away, Ram hot on his heels.

Rather than coming over to her, JD stands behind the tree, pressing his fists into it and leaning on it. Veronica goes over to him instead, the warmth prickling at her back.

“JD?” she asks again.

“I’m okay,” he breathes. “Yeah, just… let’s just get this stuff packed up.” He yanks on the rope twice, then one more as it falls from the tree onto the ground. He puts it back into the backpack he had brought with him, along with his book. Veronica falls into step beside him, her hand brushing against his again and again until she decides to take his hand herself, being comforted by the smile that spreads across his face as she does so and the way he squeezes her hand gently.

“You were going to let them down, right?” she asks, wincing as she says it.

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean… I wanted to, yeah.” She wonders who he’s talking to, himself or her. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she says, the half-truth sitting heavily between them. On the one hand, she was happy to see them hanging helplessly, finally switching up the roles even if it was just for one day, and happy to know her reputation might be slightly less awful than it is now. And knowing their pride will be non-existent come Monday. On the other hand… “I just kind of feel bad after that.” But not as bad as she should, either.

“You too?” he asks shakily. When she turns to look at him, Veronica almost thinks she sees fear in his eyes. Or at the very least, he’s shaken up about something. The boy she thought was somehow unbreakable was cracking at the edges.

“Yeah,” she answers delicately. “Maybe our vigilante days are over?”

“Sure,” he says, offering her a weak smile. They finish the walk together in silence, the occasional swing of their linked hands the only movement besides walking, a gesture that she hopes means he’s still with her, and it’s an attempt to clear the air between them despite the haunted look in JD’s eyes. She isn’t sure if she wants him to hold her closer or not and that to her is the worst part of all this.

By the time they make if back to his house, her mood is slightly better and her worries lessened by the gentle swing of their hands, but her eyes still trained on his face. His jaw is still clenched, his breathing far too calculated and steady, but the darkness in his eyes is gone and his thumb strokes the back of her hand affectionately. Despite the uneasy feeling that still hangs in her gut, she doesn’t want to leave when they reach his place. She turns around so that their linked hands hang between them.

“Thank you,” she says honestly. “For protecting me.”

“Always,” he says, smiling at her, even though it doesn’t meet his eyes. She takes his face with her free hand, stroking her thumb under his eye.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.

“Are you?”

“I asked you first,” she jokes. She knows a deflection when she sees it.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just a little…” He seems to catch himself in the middle of his sentence and groans slightly, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about me. That’s not your job.”

“Whose job is it then?” she asks teasingly. “Claire’s?” Call her crazy, but maybe she wants it to be her job too. It’s not like she can help it anyways. He huffs a laugh, looking down at the ground. “You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m always all right,” he tells her. He pushes her hair away from her face. “Are you?”

“Of course,” she says, half truthful. He frowns, his fingertips trailing down her cheek and jaw as if he could coax what was really on her mind out of her simply with his gentle touch and soft yet stern eyes. Her mouth runs dry as the question lies on her tongue. “JD… you were going to let Kurt and Ram go, right?”

To her surprise, he isn’t angry with her. He lets out a long, steady breath, the hand that’s holding hers tightening on it and rubbing circles on the back of it.

“Of course I was,” he says. “I just… I’m sorry, Ronnie.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” she says, wishing she had never brought it up. “Just forget I-”

“Hey,” he croons softly, tugging on her hand and pulling her closer. “It’s okay. I am sorry if I freaked you out. I just…” His mouth opens and closes as he fumbles for the right words. She puts her hand on his chest, over his heart, hopefully telling him he can let her in whenever he wants. He smiles and places his own hand over hers. “I have someone to talk to about it.”

“And it’s not my job?” she asks, trying not to sound jealous.

“No,” he tells her, shaking his head slightly. “It’s not.”

 _What if I want it to be?_ She thinks but doesn’t ask.

“I should probably go inside,” he sighs. “Claire will be wondering where I got off to.”

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll see you on Monday.” A playful smile begins playing on her lips and she pulls him closer, even as his eyes flicker to the front door. “I can’t wait to see their faces.” He giggles, a welcome sight for her sore eyes, and nods.

“Me neither,” he replies. He hesitates for a moment before pulling her in by her chin and planting a sweet kiss on her lips. She leans into it, allowing herself to smile against him even as one of his hands tightens onto her waist and the other tangles in her hair. She should be concerned at the feeling of desperation in his lips, and she is, but she lets herself get lost just for a few seconds.

“Okay, now I really should go,” he whispers after pulling away, his breath mingling with hers.

“See you later,” she replies. He squeezes her shoulders before he disappears around the gatepost. She watches him through the edge as he half-runs up the path and knocks on the door. She looks away as it opens and he slips inside.

Not for the first time, Veronica finds herself wishing she knew what was going on inside her boyfriend’s head.

She feels her fingers itch for a pen and she curls it into a fist before heading home, her eyes flitting up to JD’s window as she passes his house. So many unsaid words bounce around in her head and build up in her chest. She picks up her pace, in a sudden hurry to get home and unload her soul the only way she’s ever known how to.

 _Dear Diary,_ she writes that night, her back up against her bed, her diary balancing on her knees and a steaming mug of tea beside her. _Today was… weird. I don’t even know how to feel._

_At the beginning, it was awesome. Maybe I liked getting revenge on Kurt and Ram-is that bad? Would it be something a Heather would do? I probably shouldn’t like it, but I did anyway. And that’s where it starts. I do feel bad, a little bit. No a lot, and that kind of makes me feel worse. I guess I should be glad that I feel bad at all, because God knows they never felt bad about telling everyone in the school about our imaginary threesome. Bottom line; I feel bad, but I also kind of don’t, and I don’t know what to think about that exactly._

_And then there’s JD…_

_It’s complicated. He’s complicated._

_He told me that he would have let Kurt and Ram down, and he did. And it’s not that I don’t trust him or I don’t believe him, I do. But there was something in his eyes… I guess if I had to use a word, I’d say looked scared. He was freaked out by something. The worst part is that I don’t know what he could have been scared of. It can’t have been Kurt and Ram. Was he scared of me? I want to say he has no reason to be scared of me but how would I know that? Or maybe he’s scared of himself, and that’s what freaks me out more._

_I just want to be there for him. God knows he’s done it enough times for me. Keeping me safe. Sometimes keeping me sane. I know he said he has someone (a someone I don’t think is Claire) and that it’s not my job, but I kind of want it to be. A part time job at least._

_And…._

She pauses, her pen hovering above the page as her heart suddenly creeps up to her throat, and the absurd image of her vomiting it onto the page comes into her mind. She looks over her shoulder, feeling silly, like Heather Chandler would be sitting behind her reading all her secrets (although back when she was a Heather, a part of her thought she could do exactly that). Or maybe she was worried JD would be reading what she’s writing. What would he think of her then? A rush of guilt comes over her and she drags her legs closer to her body, but she doesn’t stop writing, the words flowing out onto the page making her brain feel far less crowded.

_I just hope that he’s really fighting for me. Because my offer still stands; I’ll fight the world for him if he fights for me first._

She looks up at her ceiling, thinking back over everything. She dwells on the negative, on the tense walk home and JD’s fearful, conflicted eyes, for longer than she cares to admit, but she finds her way to the positives soon enough. Remembers kissing JD in his bedroom, the sound of his laugh and the flustered way he tried to clean up after himself, him telling her about the ways people in romance novels court each other. Remembers him pulling her in for a goodbye kiss, the sound of his giggle and the way he squeezing her hand, how despite it all, she felt like his touch was calming her down, how safe and right she feels around him. She remembers it all, remembers the clarity and happiness and spark in his eyes then, and smiles despite herself.

_I have a feeling he is though._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably the most difficult chapter to write so far. My goal was to show that despite his better life, JD still has some issues (because his childhood royally effed him up), but he's overall doing better, and Veronica knows that. Complex stuff, I know and I wanted to (and hope I did) portray it with as much respect and nuance as possible. As I said in the opening notes when I started this fic, I'm not pretending to know everything.  
> Hopefully the next chapter will be more light-hearted.


	8. Chapter 8

Veronica can’t deny her nerves as she pushes the gate of Westerberg High open on Monday morning. She hadn’t heard from JD for the rest of the weekend, a niggling voice in the back of her head telling her not to call him as she sat on her bed next to her phone, nervously picking at her nail, caught between giving him space and wanting him to know that he’s not alone. Apparently she picked the former and as she looks down at her destroyed nails on her right hand, she hopes she picked the right one. The yard is already alive with students, freshmen running around the place, one group using their backpack as a football, enjoying the rare late October sunshine before it’s gone completely, and inside is even more so. Despite the promise she and JD weaselled out of Kurt and Ram, she still pulls her coat a little tighter around herself as the hairs on her arms prick up. Even with their turned backs, she feels like everyone has their eyes on her, the word “slut” painted on her back in bright red. The irony of that image is not lost on her.

“Hey, Veronica,” the soft voice of her best friend greets next to her. Martha slides up to her, her brown hair pulled back in a braid and a gentle, excited smile that still warms Veronica’s heart on her face. There’s a gleam in her eyes too, the kind that promises exciting news.

“Hey,” Veronica replies, falling into step beside her.

“Did you hear?” Martha asks.

“Hear what?” she says, feeling slightly more cautious now. Kurt and Ram would never tell anyone-not even their dads, especially not their dads-about what she and JD did. Being a snitch is only slightly better than being a slut.

“Ram’s going around telling everything he and Kurt lied about the threeway,” she says, almost squealing in excitement. “That you didn’t do anything with them.”

“They are?” Veronica asks, looking around her. People don’t stop to talk to her, but no one did since before she was a Heather. No one is casting judgemental, disgusted glances at her, and there’s definitely no secret sniggering behind her back. She lets out a small laugh, feeling relief wash over her. “Thank god for that.”

“I knew it,” she says proudly. “I knew Ram would come through eventually. See, I told you he’s not so bad.” Veronica bites her tongue, smiling and nodding as Martha tells her about Ram’s so called ‘good heart’, listens politely as she tells her how his tough jock thing is an act he puts up for everyone, that he just wants people to like him. ‘If he wants people to like him, maybe he shouldn’t lie about who he’s slept with’ crosses Veronica’s mind, but she bites it back. She’s already broken Martha’s heart once. And besides, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. It’s hurting her, given how much she’s biting down on her tongue, but that’s not really important.

When she feels someone coming up behind her and the brief touch of a finger against her hand, she has to hold back the urge to sigh in relief, even though it comes with the tell-tale prickle of nerves down her back.

“Hey,” she greets, turning her head slightly to see JD beside her. To her comfort, he looks a lot calmer than he did on Saturday, his eyes clearer and his smile bright as he looks at her.

“Hey yourself,” he says gently. His head moves just a fraction of an inch-most likely to press a kiss to her forehead or maybe her lips if he was feeling bold enough- before he looks over at Martha, registering her friend’s presence. “Hi, Martha.”

“Hey,” she replies, toying with the ends of her braid. “How was your weekend? You two hung out right?”

“Yeah,” he answers, looking to Veronica for help. “We just uh-”

“Grabbed dinner,” Veronica finishes, covering for him. “Watched TV. Nothing exciting.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Martha says. “Uh, JD I was just telling Veronica, Kurt and Ram are telling everyone that they lied about the threeway.”

“Oh are they now?” he says, a proud tone laced through his voice that only Veronica could know. She grins, lacing their hands together, their secret hanging between them. “I guess someone’s conscience finally caught up with them.”

“That’s what I was telling Veronica,” she adds. “Ram’s not that bad, really. I knew he’d come clean sooner or later.” Veronica feels JD stiffen beside her, doing his best to still seem interested, but he rubs his thumb on the back of Veronica’s hand. “He’s a good guy, really.”

“I…” JD begins, his voice strained as he searches for the right words to say. “Do not doubt that one bit.” Martha grins, lighting up her face and the hallway. “Come on, it’s getting a little crowded in here.” They get their books from their lockers (Veronica’s now mercifully clean and devoid of any insulting graffiti) and JD walks with them to their homeroom, easily and calmly diverting the conversation to their English class, or more specifically, his and Martha’s English class, and their study of Moby Dick.

“I mean I read it for the first time when I was 14,” he explains. “But it took me a few tries to get the symbolism down.”

“But you know so much about it,” Martha adds. “Veronica you should see him in class. You’re like a college kid in there.”

“Wonder if that’s why Ms Greene hates me so much,” he jokes.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Martha assures him.

“She doesn’t particularly like me,” he reminds her. Martha bites her lip; now it’s her turn to try to search for the right words. “It’s okay though. I don’t particularly like her.”

“She’s not so bad,” Martha says. “Just a little… traditional.”

“Wow,” JD breathes. “You don’t have a bad bone in your body, do you?”

“T-thanks,” she replies, her cheeks going slightly pink as they normally do when Martha gets a compliment from anyone who isn’t Veronica. She opens the door to their homeroom and the three walk in. “But anyway, I think she likes that you argue with her. And how you’re on her level. No one else in our class is.” JD doesn’t reply, but the small, proud smile on his face is more than enough answer for both of them.

If he did have an answer it dies away when they walk in and see Heather MacNamara sitting alone at her desk, without the other two Heathers with her. She looks painfully different without them, her slight frame standing out more when she’s not flanked by the other two, her shoulders slouching without Chandler’s silent reminders to keep them up, her eyes lost when she doesn’t have one of her two focal points. Those big brown eyes land on Veronica, her pearly white teeth biting her pink lip nervously. She’s not the only nervous one; Veronica feels her own stomach sink at the sight of her ex-friend, remembering how she stood behind Chandler as that awful rumour spread like wildfire throughout the school, attempting to ruin every part of Veronica’s already-fragile social life.

“Hi Veronica,” she says softly. JD’s hand wraps around Veronica’s as she tries to think of a response, if she should give one at all. Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, she nearly considered MacNamara a friend. Unlike Duke and Chandler, she at least always made an effort to smile at her, invite her to hang out without the other two, took time to explain the completely foreign world of makeup and parties to her. Up until two weeks ago, Veronica might have called her a friend.

“Hi,” she says warily, moving backwards into JD when MacNamara stands up, picking at her perfectly manicured nails. Good thing Chandler isn’t here; she would go ballistic (if anyone is capable of going ballistic at someone as innocent looking as MacNamara, it’s probably Heather Chandler, although Veronica wasn’t in their group long enough to see it).

“I heard what Kurt and Ram are saying,” she says. “That they lied about the rumour. They made it up.”

“Yeah, they did,” she says, suddenly defensive. MacNamara nods quickly, her head bobbing up and down, making her blonde hair shake.

“Well… um, good,” she stammers. “Maybe then everything goes back to normal?”

She thinks to ask what exactly she thinks normal is, but the question stays quiet on her tongue as she settles for looking her up and down, watching as she fidgets uncomfortably under her gaze. The tension in the air is so thick that Veronica feels like she’s being choked, the presences of JD and Martha behind her, plus his grip on her hand, being the only things keeping her from collapsing underneath it.

“Veronica,” MacNamara begins. “Look I just wanted to say-”

She supposes she’ll never know what Heather wanted to say, because the door swings open and Heather Chandler storms in, followed by a less authoritative, but still compelling in her own way, Heather Duke. Chandler’s resentful eyes land on Veronica, and now it’s her turn to squirm and shrink back even further, even with her own supports behind her.

“So I hear Kurt and Ram made that rumour up,” she says, her voice thin, rage simmering just below the surface like a volcano that’s overdue to explode. Veronica only nods. “Interesting.” She sits down at her own desk and Duke follows, her back turned away from Veronica. Within a few moments, MacNamara follows suit, making her message clear to Veronica; she chose her side. Even though she knows how silly it is, Veronica tries not to be hurt by it.

“Let it roll off your back, Ronnie,” JD says softly to her as she sits up on her desk. She takes his wrist and pulls him closer so that his legs are on either side of her.  Her goal isn’t necessarily to use him to block the Heathers out of her line of sight, but it certainly helps. She supposes that’s the plus side of having a tall boyfriend.

“I know,” she sighs, turning her hand over in his. “At least I’m back to just being a loser, instead of a loser and a slut.” She’s trying not to sound bitter, really trying, but it creeps into her voice anyway. Martha takes her free hand sympathetically and squeezes gently.

“You still have us,” she offers, glancing nervously at JD, but relaxing when he nods. Veronica chuckles, surrounded by the only two people she could ever see herself needing, in high school at least.

“Yeah, I do,” she agrees, smiling down at Martha.

The homeroom door swings open again and Veronica peeps over JD’s shoulder to see Miss Fleming entering, three heavy looking notebooks in her arms and a long green scarf trailing behind her. Veronica suppresses a groan and briefly rests her head on JD’s shoulder before bringing herself back up again. Fleming flies through the room before coming to a half at Veronica’s desk, taking in the sight of JD standing there, likely far too close to Veronica than she would like. Veronica bites the inside of her cheek to stop her from laughing as Fleming’s face slowly turns into a too tight smile.

“Jason isn’t it?” she asks, to which JD nods. “I don’t think this is your homeroom, is it?”

“You would be correct,” he replies coolly. Veronica grins as she feels a hush fall across the room, all eyes turning to the battle of words between JD and Fleming. Right now he’s a clear winner, Fleming’s grip tightening on her books so much that her knuckles turn white.

“Well maybe you should go to your own homeroom?” she suggests in a tight voice. JD’s mouth twitches up into a cheeky smile, one that hints at trouble but Veronica knows he has no intention of making any.

“Yes ma’am,” he says. He turns back to Veronica and gives her hand a tight squeeze. “I’ll see you later, darling.”

“Okay bye,” she replies softly. He bids Martha goodbye too before leaving, the proud smile remaining on his face as he walks out of the room, his coat blowing a little behind him. At Fleming’s disapproving look, Veronica slides off her desk and into her seat.

“You’re blushing,” Martha whispers, turning slightly in her seat. Veronica presses a hand to her cheek and sure enough, she finds it warm. Strangely, she finds that she doesn’t care, even if the entirety of her class has just watched her cheeks turning pink.  She half-listens to Flemings’ morning announcements while scribbling in her diary, doodling hearts and flowers in the margins as she goes, breathing coming easy to her after the painful few days she had last week.

 _Dear diary,_ she writes. _So my reputation is back on track… what’s left of it anyway. Not like I’m expecting any apologies, from Kurt, Ram, or anyone else. Certainly not Heather Chandler. Most people still aren’t talking to me, but I kind of don’t really care anymore. Maybe because I’m used to it. Maybe because I have Martha and JD now._

_JD seems better. It’s like if I hadn’t seen him on Saturday, I wouldn’t have known that he got a little…. Maybe freaked? He was happier today I guess. I guess whatever was bothering him got worked out. Or maybe I just remember it being worse than it was. Whatever it is, I just hope he stays that way._

She twirls her pen around her finger underneath her desk, her thoughts circling around in her brain like a train, glancing up at Mrs Fleming, at least giving the façade of paying attention, while also sneaking a look at the clock. Seeing how close it is to the end of homeroom, she puts her diary back in her bag with a resigned sigh, the feeling of all her innermost thoughts and secrets weighing heavily against her legs when she stands, the bag brushing against her. Still, as she makes her way to her first class, her boyfriend worries slip to the back of her mind for now, lying dormant under piles of homework and assignments and reminders of college applications and deciding on what to eat for lunch.

                                                                                                *****

The sound of the final bell on Friday is music to Veronica’s ears, as is the sound of chairs scraping and exciting conversations blossoming over the attempts of her teacher to remind them of their homework and promise to start the Civil War on Tuesday. She lifts her heavy bag onto her shoulder and hurries out, clutching her notebook and diary to her chest. She passes Heather Duke on the way out, wearing her seemingly permanent scowl. When she’s with the other two, at least Duke is balanced by Chandler’s steady confidence and MacNamara’s charms. She even adds to them in turn, completing their little trifecta. But on her own, she has never been quite as strong. Chandler alone can still make a grown man kneel, MacNamara can charm any boy she wants without the help of the other two, but Duke? When Duke is on her own, all Veronica can see is an angry little girl with not much else to her. She certainly doesn’t see someone that would make her palms sweat as she passes, yet she ends up wiping her hand on her skirt anyway.

“Weekend plans?” she asks bluntly, no fake politeness at all in her voice, unlike Heather Chandler. She toys with the edge of her hair, winding it around her finger, which she focuses on so intently that Veronica is half convinced she didn’t actually say anything.

“Maybe,” she replies flatly before she feels a slight boost in confidence inside her, a daring spark in her chest. “Why do you care?” She winces internally once the words leave her mouth, a heavy feeling in her stomach warning her that she’s going to regret this.

“I don’t,” she says, dropping her hair and turning her eyes to Veronica, her hand on her hip, her chest pushed out. A cruel smirk curls on her lips. “I’m just surprised people are still talking to you.”

“Well… they are,” Veronica says, her tone not as tough as she might like. Heather’s accusation feels like a slap across the face. “Guess I didn’t really need you three.”

“Oh, please,” Duke giggles. “You, Martha Dumptruck and your psychotic boyfriend? I’m sure that’s a laugh a minute.”

“Watch your mouth, Heather,” she tells her.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asks in return, stepping closer to Veronica. Veronica stumbles backwards involuntarily and hits her leg on a desk. Duke might be almost half her size, but Veronica quickly that doesn’t mean she can’t hold her own. She kicks herself for underestimating Duke.

“Isn’t Heather Chandler waiting for you somewhere?” she asks, slipping past the desk and away from Duke. Her comment only makes her frown more, Duke’s hand on her hip clenching, her fingers digging into the green blazer.

“Chandler doesn’t own me,” she spits.

“Sure she doesn’t,” Veronica says. “Bye Heather.”

Veronica hurries out of the classroom, her chest feeling significantly less tight as she steps out into the hallway. She still feels Duke’s eyes burning on the back of her like little lasers, getting more intense as she hears the sound of her heels ringing off the linoleum towards her. She swears she can feel Duke’s breath on the back of her neck.

“Heather!”

In one single fraction of a moment, it appears Veronica and Duke are united in something; they both jump a mile high. As Veronica tries to will her frantic heart to slow down, she turns to the sound of the voice that caused them such a shock, despite already knowing who it is. Even if she didn’t have such an unmistakable voice, there’s only one person who could ever cause that reaction from Duke. As she turns her head in attempt to look anywhere other than Chandler’s shark like eyes, Veronica notices the students around her slowing down or even having so little shame that they stop altogether and linger against walls-heads in books but ears pricked up, hoping for a juicy tidbit to tide them over until Monday. She isn’t all that surprised if she’s honest.

“Am I interrupting something?” Heather Chandler asks, her chin lifted up just a fraction, which is all she really needs to do. She raises her perfectly arched eyebrow, silently demanding an answer.

“No,” Heather Duke replies, tugging on her jacket. “Girl talk.”

“Then why are you keeping me waiting?” she asks sharply. Veronica isn’t sure if she imagines it when Duke winces, and something inside her turns and she wants to tell Heather Chandler to back off. It’s an odd feeling to say the least.

“Sorry Heather,” she says, heading over to Chandler’s side. She keeps her head up, her chest forward, but she strides over there quickly and her hands curl into fists at her side.

“Let’s go,” she orders, turning around, her plaid skirt fanning out around her and her blonde curls bouncing before landing immaculately in place. “MacNamara’s waiting for us in the parking lot.” The sound of their heels clicking on the floor becomes softer and softer, until they’ve faded entirely, leaving Veronica in the hallway with her fellow students surrounding her. Once the Heathers have left, the school returns to normality, freshman running down the hall, eager to escape and celebrate the weekend, conversations fading back in like a radio tuning into a station. Veronica runs a hand through her hair and lets out a long sigh, the air feeling lighter and freer now that they’re gone. She feels her cheeks burning and she knows why. A part of her hates this- the feeling that the Heathers will constantly be on her back, nipping at her heels, finding moments when she’s alone and biting at her right up until the day she graduates.

She runs down the main stairs and out the front door, pulling her scarf out of her bag and wrapping it around her neck as the autumn air leaves her shivering slightly. Red, orange and yellow leaves scatter across the concrete as she makes her way across the yard, towards the iron gate that led out onto the main road, where two days of freedom await her. Well, two days of freedom, with the occasional study and homework moments. But she can’t slow down, especially not with college applications on the horizon.

There’s a surprising sight as she makes her way across the yard; his back might be turned to her, but the trench coat and dark curls are instantly recognisable. As she approaches, she guesses by the way he’s hunched over he’s reading again, probably one of the three books she saw in his bag that morning. He breezes through them during class, having somehow perfected the art of reading a book hidden on his lap while pretending to be paying attention. She shouldn’t be impressed, but she is, even though she still manages to get on him for it.

“Boo!” she shouts, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“Shit, Ronnie,” he says as she giggles. He runs his hand through his hair, grinning, while the other hand marks his page. “Not cool.” She cackles and sits next to him on the wall, facing the opposite way from him, her feet trailing along the ground, and kisses his jaw playfully. He smiles against her and she hears him chuckle.

“What are you even doing here anyway?” she asks. “Aren’t you normally gone by now?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I should be. I just had a run-in with Heather Duke. It was nothing.”

“Did she say anything to you?” he asks, turning towards her so he can wrap his arm around her shoulders, his book forgotten.

“She said some things to me,” she says, drumming her heels on the wall. She runs her hand up her arm like she can wash Duke’s words away from her. “Nothing important. Just the usual bitch stuff. You know I never knew…” She waves her hand in the air as if she can conjure the end of her sentence by magic.

“Never knew….”

“That she could be so vicious,” she finishes.

“You didn’t?” JD asks, scrunching up his face slightly. “How long were you guys friends?”

“Okay, stop,” she says, lightly hitting him in the chest. “It’s not that I didn’t know… I just sort of thought she was Chandler’s lackey. Guess I never realised there was something lurking underneath that frown.” Lurking like a shark underneath the water. JD runs his finger up and down her arm, tickling her skin gently and getting her to giggle.

“You sure she didn’t say anything to you?”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” she tells him. When she sees his disheartened expressions, it’s her turn to comfort him, rubbing her thumb along his cheekbone. “Nothing I can’t handle on my own.” He nods, giving her a half smile and kissing the inside of her wrist. Veronica lets out a small breath, her heart picking up slightly at the touch of his lips on her wrist.

“You didn’t answer me,” she reminds him in a soft voice. “What are you still doing here?”

“Waiting for Claire,” he explains. He scoots closer to her so that their hips are touching.

“I thought you walk home.”

“I do,” he says, a cryptic smile playing on his face and his fingers toying with the ends of her hair. Normally she’d be bothered by something like that, but for him she’ll make an exception. “Only I’m not going home. I have an appointment out of town, and unfortunately I can’t drive myself there.”

“Oh,” Veronica replies. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course it is,” he replies, his fingers running off her hair and down her neck, stroking gently. “Just need to stay on top of things.” She nods, her concern not fading away with his comforting smile, rather a niggling worry clings to the back of her mind, poking at her despite him reassuring her. “Oh, speak of the devil.”

Veronica looks up and sees Claire’s little grey Ford pulling up onto the kerb outside. She honks her horn for good measure and JD responds with a tired wave. He slips his book into his backpack and pulls himself off the wall, Veronica not too far behind him.

“Want me to walk you to the car?” Veronica offers as their fingers brush.

“The chivalrous thing,” he replies with a grin, lacing their fingers together. “I’d be honoured.” Veronica laughs and he lets her lead him out the front gate and round to where Claire is parked, her glasses sitting on her head.

“Hi Veronica, how are you?” she asks politely.

“I’m great, thanks,” she replies.

“I’ll see you later,” JD offers, glancing briefly at Claire, who turns her attention to the opposite window, away from them. Veronica knows she isn’t imagining JD’s smile.

“See you later,” she agrees. She looks over at Claire too before looking back at JD, her pulse racing against his skin. They settle on a quick goodbye peck before he climbs into the car, saluting her with his finger as Claire puts the car into gear and waves before driving off, leaving a slightly breathless Veronica on the street by herself. She pushes her hair away from her face as she watches Claire’s car getting smaller and smaller along the road, driving along to whatever appointment he has. The one he remains deliberately cryptic about, hiding behind a coy smile and sparkling eyes, gentle fingers in her hair and soft kisses on her lips.

He’s told her it isn’t her job to worry about him. But she should get a pay raise anyway.

                                                                                                *****

“So how was school?” Claire asks over the sound of an old song playing on the radio.

“Fine,” JD responds, keeping his gaze fixed on the world outside the window. He imagines a little stick figure running along the path, keeping in time with the speed of the car, jumping over trash cans and swinging over pedestrian’s shoulders. It keeps his mind occupied and more importantly, his attention away from Claire.

“Don’t you have mid-terms coming up soon?” she asks casually.

“Yeah kind of,” he replies nonchalantly. He does, of course, there’s an essay due for American History and for English and he has quizzes coming up in biology and Spanish and social studies, and none of those books have ever really been opened outside of class, except for when he sits next to Veronica in study hall and they study together in whispered words and passed notes. Otherwise they sit in the back of his locker or the bottom of his bag until the night before it’s due in. He’s managed to pull off some minor miracles this way.

“Kind of?” she echoes with a soft chuckle. It dies quickly between them. JD imagines it hitting an invisible wall and sliding down sadly before writhing around on the bottom of the car amongst the dust balls and discarded popcorn bags. “Well if you want, we can go to that stationery store after your appointment. You can get some study cards, highlighters, the works.”

“My friend Martha uses a lot of them,” he laughs, more to himself than her. Of course, the word ‘friend’ makes her ears prick up, like she’s a puppy and he just said ‘walk’.

“Another friend?” she asks.

“Okay, technically she’s not my friend. She’s Veronica’s friend. I hang out with her.”

“But you like her?”

“I….” He looks back out the window. For a few weeks, him eating lunch with Veronica alone in their small, secluded garden, away from private eyes had been such bliss that no one else had really crossed his mind. His thoughts never really went to the future; just the next day’s lunchtime. Then when Veronica told him that she and Martha were friends again, it was a confusing experience for him, to put it mildly. Veronica’s happiness is his happiness, so of course he was never going to stand in the way of her being friends with Martha again, even though his mind had immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion; once Martha came back, Veronica would have no need for him anymore, and he’d be left in the dust. Or they’d all try to form a little threesome, which would inevitably collapse under the unnecessary weight; JD himself. Then the more time he spent with Martha, the more his worries were chipped away, and the more he came to realise that maybe Martha could be more than just ‘his girlfriend’s friend’. Sure, when they were alone together they barely made it past small talk, but with Veronica boosting them along, the two somehow managed to get a relatively easy rapport between them. He’s not sure how he’s managed it, but he did, and that has to count for something. Not that he’ll confess that to Claire. “She’s okay, I guess.”

“Cool.” JD hides the inescapable smirk behind his hand, looking up at the sky as she pulls to a stop at a red light. He knows what she’s thinking and he doesn’t even need to look at her to do so. He knows that having one girlfriend and one sort-of, kind-of friend is a huge step up from his old schools. And that all that information sits in a heavy brown file in his social worker’s office, and in Claire’s desk drawers. There’s probably a page that just says “MAKE SURE HE MAKES FRIENDS” in big red marker. “So about the study thing… maybe after I pick you up we can go get you some school stuff? Or we can go tomorrow?”

“That’s okay,” he says, shifting in his seat. “I don’t really need anything.”

“Oh… okay,” she says softly. “I mean if you’re sure… You’ve got all the studying under control then?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Jason… you are hitting the books, right?”

“Did you just say, ‘hitting the books’?” he asks. “What year are you living in?”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” she warns. “Jason, I know from your last schools that sometimes… you tend to struggle. And I for one don’t want to sign another D on a quiz.”

“Then don’t sign it,” he snaps. He runs a hand through his hair and focuses his attention on a passing tree as Claire comes to stop at a red light. He keeps his eye on a particular red leaf that’s wiggling in the breeze, about five seconds from falling off the tree. Anything to not look at Claire and the stupid, wounded expression she no doubt has on her face, probably blinking her big green eyes behind those thick rimmed glasses of hers. JD shifts again in his seat, resting his chin on his fist. She’s completely quiet, and yet somehow that’s worse than when she was filling the silence in the car by chattering about school supplies and friends and his stupid grades.

Claire is a complete paradox; every day he grows more annoyed with her and somehow, less annoyed. He hates not knowing things, and not knowing Claire has been driving him crazy in the few weeks he’s lived with her.

“Um, yeah, maybe we could go get some school stuff,” he says in a small voice. “Maybe I’ll take a leaf out of Martha’s book.”

“Really?” she asks, sounding surprised. He doesn’t need to turn around to see the dumb smile on her face.

“Yeah. Only if I get to pay for it, though.”

“Jason, it’s school stuff, I can pay for it.”

“Yeah I know, that’s what the system pays you for,” he chuckles, biting his tongue the minute after he says it. He knows the drill in every single home; ever since he was 13 he’s known they all get paid to take care of him and keep him out of trouble. He doesn’t harbour any ill will. It’s business. In his mind, they probably deserve a raise. Still, Claire’s smile dips as he says it. “I can pay myself, it’s fine. I’ll be the one using them.”

“Okay. Cool.” Her voice is lighter this time, and JD finds that the air in the car is much lighter than before. He slides up in the seat, looking ahead onto the road at the red brick buildings and half-bare trees. His bag slides against his leg as Claire pulls out of the red light and turns a corner, his homework and barely opened textbooks seeming to tap against him like a child on their mother’s arm, asking to be opened and looked at for more than ten minutes at a time. Well maybe tonight he will.

As Claire pulls onto a familiar street, he presses his thumb into his palm as his mouth runs dry. He feels a familiar sensation in his stomach, like someone is pressing a ball down inside.

“You okay?” Claire asks, frowning as she parks the car.

“Of course I am,” he sighs. “I’m always okay.” He sounds convincing enough, except for the fact that instead of getting out of the car, he’s sitting there scratching his palm with his thumb nail. He heaves a sigh and looks out the front window. “Claire… just… don’t tell Veronica about this, okay?”

“I never would.”

“No, I know,” he says. “Just… I want to tell her. When it’s the right time, you know?”

“Yeah,” she says softly, nodding. “Don’t worry, kid. My lips are sealed. If you’re ever planning on bringing Veronica over again…”

“Gosh, get out of my dating life,” he sighs, getting out of the car and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be here,” she replies. “And hey-want pizza for dinner?” She half-leans on the open car window, offering him a gentle smile. He chuckles, scratching behind his ear and looking down at the pavement.

“Yeah. Yeah pizza’s great.”

“Great. See you in an hour kid,” she says, rolling her window back up again.

“See you,” he says under his breath. As he turns around, he hears her engine starting up and then the sound of her car shifting off the sidewalk and onto the road, heading off for her to do God knows what for the next hour. His activity for the next hour stands before him in a red brick building that would look perfectly normal and unsuspicious on this street, if not for the engraved gold plaque on the door. He pulls on the strap on his backpack as he heads in, cautiously glancing around the street. It’s foolish to look; no one at school who cares enough would be in this part of town on a Friday afternoon, but still, the shameful idea of anyone knowing clings to him like a spider on his back. He turns the door handle and heads inside. Another great gift from his father.

Next time, he thinks bitterly, maybe his dad can give him a puppy.

                                                                                                *****

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Veronica,” Mrs Dunnstock comments as Veronica and Martha make their way into the living room, armed with sleeping bags and candy and the menu for the pizza take out place. Veronica bristles, faking a smile all the while her heart beats irregularly and uneasily underneath her blue blazer.

“Been busy,” she offers weakly. “Senior year.”

“Oh I know, it’s all work now,” Mrs Dunnstock agrees. “Still, it’s lovely to see you against Veronica.” She pauses, eyeing Veronica’s choice of clothes, and while she can’t be certain, she’s pretty sure it’s her skirt that’s catching her attention. Veronica’s hand moves to her hem and tries to pull it down. “Is that a new skirt?”

“Um, yeah,” she says. “I got it a while ago.”

“Oh… it’s very pretty,” she comments. Veronica nods in thanks and follows Martha into her living room, letting out a long sigh behind the closed door.

“You do look great in that outfit,” Martha offers, trying to smile, sitting cross-legged on the couch, her eyes flickering to Veronica’s legs as she pulls up her blue knee-length sock. “I’d never pull something like that off.”

“Yes, you could,” Veronica insists, sitting beside her on the couch and taking her hand. “I know you could.” Martha nods, but looks down at her body, her hand running over her stomach, and Veronica feels her heart tear in two. She reaches out and hugs her tightly, resting her head on Martha’s shoulder. None of the Heathers would cuddle with her, she realises with a smile as Martha’s arm comes around her body and holds her just as tightly.

“More of me to love,” Martha whispers. Veronica wonders if she’s talking to her or herself.

“Exactly,” Veronica agrees, rubbing her cheek against Martha’s shoulder. Martha opens up the pizza menu. “The usual?” By ‘the usual’, she of course means two medium pizzas, one plain veggie, and two cans of drinks.

“I don’t know,” Martha says. “I don’t really think I’ll eat anything. Just order for yourself.”

“What?” she asks. “You not hungry?”

“I don’t know.” Martha pulls on the hair tie around her wrist and Veronica hopes to God she’s imagining the shakiness in her voice.

“Martha Dunnstock,” Veronica says sternly, tilting her chin towards her and frowning in her best impression of Miss Fleming. “You’re not a great liar.” Martha avoids her eyes, wriggling her chin gently out of her grasp.

“I don’t know… I just thought maybe it was time to eat healthy, you know?”

Veronica’s heart stops in her chest. She knows exactly what ‘eating healthy’ is code for and she refuses to allow it. Not to Martha.

“Martha,” she sighs, turning onto her side, searching for the impossible words. “Martha… No.” She wants to tell her that she’s perfect the way she is, but she knows she’s just echoing Mrs Fleming’s empty statements from morning assembly, even if she actually means them, it will sound empty and meaningless to Martha. “You don’t need to do anything to yourself. Diet, work out, anything.”

“I just…” Martha begins. “Forget it.”

“Can’t,” Veronica teases, albeit with a steely tone underneath it. “You’ve implanted it in my brain.” She shoves her shoulder gently. “You can tell me anything.” Her fingertips caress Martha’s cheekbone and she pokes the side of her mouth up into a smile like she used to when they were little and they confessed to stealing cookies from the jar while sitting in the backyard.

“I want someone to look at me the way JD looks at you,” she confesses, avoiding her eyes with a guilty pout on her face. “You must to see the way he looks at you in school. He’s head over heels for you.”

“I…” Veronica’s voice trails off, a frustrated sigh escaping her mouth. “Martha… someone will look at you like that one day, I promise. Someone’s going to love every single part of you. Just like I do.” Martha smiles, brighter this time, her shoulders relaxing into Veronica’s embrace. “So are we ordering the usual?” Martha looks long and hard at the menu.

“Okay,” she says tentatively.  “As long as you’re eating some too.”

“Obviously,” she snorts.

Soon after they’re sitting with two pizza boxes spread out on their lap, their drinks and candy beside them and The Princess Bride on the TV. Veronica can’t help but notice Martha’s nervous eyes flickering to her every few minutes and hugs her a little tighter.

“Remind me to show this to JD,” she tells her. “Can you believe he’s never seen this movie?”

“Then he hasn’t lived!” Martha chuckles. “Don’t you think it’s kind of weird?”

“That he hasn’t seen The Princess Bride?” she asks. “I guess, but he told me he hasn’t watched Disney movies either, so…”

“No, that he’s here,” Martha explains. “That he ended up back in Westerberg. You know, that he left and then came back to you.”

“Back to me,” she repeats, her face turning pink. “I guess it’s a huge coincidence.”

“Kind of romantic,” she says, pointing to the TV screen, where Buttercup and Westley are reunited with Westley as the Dread Pirate Roberts. “Like this, you know?”

“Oh yeah,” Veronica says, a smile tugging on the corner of her lips. “Westley’s even dressed like JD.”

That gets Martha giggling, hiding behind one of her mother’s good pillows.

“I mean… he does kind of?”

“Think I could get him to wear one of those puffy shirts?” Veronica asks, beginning to cackle as well. “Just once, just to see what it would look like.”

“I mean, you should try,” Martha adds, still laughing. “Oh, you know what you should do? Get him to do it for Halloween.”

“Like a couples costume?” she asks. “Hmm, maybe he would be into that.” She bites into another slice of pizza, trying to keep her mind on the here and now, the laughing and the pizza and the movie and the smiles, and not on the niggling worry about JD and his mystery appointment, her climbing anxiety that he’s not telling her something, no, not anxiety, she knows that he’s not telling her something. She tries not to wonder if every couple has parts like this, if JD is going to be a puzzle for her to spend her days working out, or a cryptic message to decode when he’s not around. She always liked puzzles, and now she seems to have one of her own. She’s gone from knowing nothing to being thrown into the deep end. As she nuzzles into Martha and watches Princess Buttercup and Westley declare their love, she can feel herself blushing as she lets herself feel the thrill it gives her; the idea of being the one who figures him out, having him leaning on her.

All she can really know for sure about him is that Martha is right-JD should dress up as Westley for Halloween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have tricked you all into reading a Martha Appreciation fic by disguising it as a JDronica fic. Oops. Nah jokes this is still very much a jdronica fic.  
> Anyways, leave comments and kudos if you liked it!! Any guesses as to what JD's mystery appointment is?  
> The good news is that the next chapter is one of the first parts of this story I thought of when planning it, so yay?  
> Also Taylor Swift dropped her new album Lover so I can have that on repeat while writing


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: there is some description/mention of violence in this chapter. the description is not long or graphic, but it is in here.  
> on a happier note: there is a reference to another musical in this chapter. see if you can spot it!

September bleeds into October, nights grow longer, skies grow darker, and for the students of Westerberg high school, class gets tougher. Homework piles up and every class ends with a reminder that an essay is due on Friday or their test is next week. Stationery shops are restocking as fast as they can, the school aisles of supermarkets and department stores almost bare. Everyone from the freshman wanting to make a good impression on their parents to the seniors worrying about meeting the requirements for college are feeling the stress, along with the heavy fear sitting in their guts that this is only the beginning.

Which is how Veronica ends up lying across her boyfriend’s bed, her study notes abandoned on the floor, JD rubbing circles on her bed, which turns into a full blown massage relatively quickly, his fingers working against the knots in her back and neck. It’s not exactly what she’d like him to be doing to her in his bedroom, but it does feel like heaven, and it’s exactly what she needs right now. She reaches down and turns another page, staring blankly at a diagram of the human heart, jabbing at each section with her finger.

“Left atrium, acts as a holding chamber for blood coming back from the lungs,” she announces, closing her eyes tightly so as not to peek at her notes. “Right atrium does…. Something… which I can remember…” She clenches her fist so tightly it begins to shake, as though she can will the answer right into her hand.

“Receives deox-”

“Deoxygenated blood through the vena cava!” she shouts, her head snapping up, only to be met with a pain her neck from hanging over the side of JD’s bed for more than half an hour. She pouts and rubs at the sore part while he runs his fingers down her spine.

“I think someone’s a little sleep deprived,” he teases while reading over his messy notes.

“I’m a little everything deprived,” she admits, sitting up, her back groaning in protest, and pulling her knees against her chest and resting her cheek on his shoulder. She half-reads over his sprawling handwriting on his book, the black ink occasionally interrupted by green or red. His hand comes up her back and tangles in her hair.

“Why don’t we take a little break?” he asks gently. “Go for a walk, get some food, let you see the sweet light of day again-”

“Believe me when I say I’d love that,” she sighs. “But I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” he insists. “I see how hard you’re studying. We have study hall together remember?”

“Yeah, how hard I work when you aren’t there to distract me,” she says playfully, tapping his nose with her finger. It’s true, more often than not they sneak off to the “bathroom” together, one leaving thirty seconds before the other, and end up sitting against the window together, toes just barely scraping the floor.

“I’m just making sure you take breaks,” he says, kissing her head. “Pace yourself.”

“If only Harvard, Duke and Brown were letting me pace myself,” she sighs, lying back on his bed. He follows her, laying on his side, his hand intertwining with hers and resting on her stomach. “I still need a recommendation letter.”

“I can write one,” JD offers. “Veronica Sawyer, excellent student, perfect friend, wonderful girlfriend. Special skills include doodling and breaking into houses.” Veronica sniggers. “Or Claire can, given how much she adores you. She might end up trying to foster you as well as me. Besides, why are you worrying? Didn’t you say the deadlines are in January?”

“Yeah.”

“Veronica… it’s October.”

“I know,” she sighs. “But I don’t want to leave things to the last minute, you know.”  He hums in acknowledgement, his thumb rubbing circles on the back of her hand. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I haven’t even asked, where are you applying?”

“Oh. That,” he says, heaving a sigh and shifting until he lies on his back. “I haven’t really thought about that. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll bother.”

“You won’t?” she asks, propping herself up on her elbow. She wants to ask why not but sees the wall her boyfriend builds around himself and isn’t sure she’s daring enough to climb it. He looks down at their intertwined hands, moving them back and forth playfully.

“Nah,” he says. “I mean, I just don’t think it’s for me, you know? Just stay here, get a job somewhere.” His tone is flippant, casual, as though his future’s too far away to even think about.

“You think you’ll stay here?” she asks him. She hadn’t given it much thought; all she knew since she was 15 was that she was leaving Sherwood, Ohio in the dust, and when JD came along, she had assumed she’d take him with her, in the rare time it ever crossed her mind.

“Probably,” he says, a familiar coy smile on his face. “Maybe, maybe not. Wouldn’t be so bad, I guess.”

“It wouldn’t?” she asks. He shakes his head just slightly, pursuing his lips. He looks up at her and quickly moves and plants a swift kiss on her lips. As usual, she smiles against him, butterflies briefly taking off in her stomach as her fingers curl into the fabric of his covers. “What was that for?”

“To tell you not to worry,” he tells her. “I’ll always come up to see you at Harvard. Or Duke. Or Brown. Wherever you end up.”

“If I get into them,” she sighs, scooting closer and tangling her legs in with his. She blinks heavily and under different circumstances, she could fall asleep here.

“Oh, you will,” he assures her. “Of course you will.”

“Not at this rate,” she says, sitting back up and picking up her notebook off the floor. “I can’t get another B in biology.”

“You won’t,” he says softly, hugging her around her waist. “But maybe if you took a day off…”

“You’re sweet,” she says. “I’ll think about it.” She looks over JD’s shoulder, the red numbers on his alarm clock coming into focus, making her jump off his bed. “But not now, because I have to go. I have to be home in ten minutes.” She sets about shoving books into her bag without any real rhyme or reason and picking up her jacket.

“Hey, I can ask Claire if she can give you a ride back,” JD offers, following her down the stairs.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “If I run, I can make if before my parents get mad.” She turns just as she reaches the front door, leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back and JD barely two inches away from her. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

“See you Monday,” he agrees, kissing her forehead. “And for God’s sake, take a break!”

“I will.”

“You better.”

“Or what?” she teases, grasping his shirt and pulling him towards her. He left his coat discarded upstairs in his room, now just in a grey t shirt and blue shirt. She wonders if he knows how different he looks without it.

“Or I’ll come into your room and sit on you until you take a nap,” he deadpans.

“You know I weirdly don’t mind that idea.” She grins as he moves closer, her hand still buried in his shirt. He moves in and kisses her, slow and soft. She wraps her arms around his neck, taking a deep breath in as she kisses him again, grinning against his lips.  She chases his lips as he moves away, his fingers trailing along her waist. She pouts at him until he nods in the direction of the hall, and she finds Claire standing with a mug of coffee in her hand and a pink hue to her cheeks, matching her sweater.

“Don’t mind me,” she says. “Just going to the living room. Pretend I was never here.”

“The implications in that are kind of gross, to be honest,” he shouts into the living room. Veronica chuckles into his shoulder.

“Okay I should really go now,” she says as he steps aside and lets her get the door. “I’ll see you later.”

“Take a damn nap,” he tells her as she leaves.

“Do your damn homework,” she replies, giggling on his porch, the cold October air raising goose bumps on her legs.

“Do you need my jacket?” he asks.

“Gentleman. I’ll be fine,” she assures him. “Good night, JD.”

“Good night, Ronnie.” He closes the front door, his silhouette still in the lit window. She gives him a small wave, unsure if he’ll see it, and turns down his path and down the street to her house. It’s darker than she thought it would be, yellow glow from the street lights guiding her back home. She comes to the realisation that it might be time for her to put the short skirts away, or maybe invest in a few pairs of tights. She won’t admit it to the Heathers, but she’s grown quite fond of the style. It might be the only thing she keeps from them.

Even if she goes miss the comfort of her oversized sweaters and denim jackets.

“I’m back,” she calls as she opens her front door.

“Hi sweetie,” her mother says as she steps into the kitchen. “How was studying?”

“Hard. Long. Boring,” she sighs, slipping her bag off her shoulder and rolling it around, wincing as pain shoots through her.

“Aw, honey. It’ll all be worth it in a few months,” her mom assures her, pushing her dark hair that’s so similar to her own off her shoulder. “You know this time next year you could be eating dinner in your dorm at Harvard.” Her mom’s voice breaks and Veronica fights the urge to roll her eyes. At least it’s better than with the Heathers; back then she kept her face stoic and her arms fidgeting by her sides, sometimes being permitted a cruel smirk or a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t get sentimental on me, Mom,” she says. “You know I’ll come back.” She means it, even if the words feel heavy in her mouth. Sherwood, Ohio is going to follow her around for the rest of her life, dragging herself back for Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays. At least twice a year she’ll have to trade the bright city lights she’s dreamt of since she first realised she could go for a small town she knows like the back of her hand. JD would say, and he has said, that she’s lucky to have somewhere she can call a hometown, shrugging as he says he can’t even remember where he was born or where his first school was. Maybe he’s right, but that won’t stop her from building a life far away from here and seeing the rest of the world.

Okay, she thinks as she watches her mom cooking, maybe that’s a little harsh.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

“Yeah.” All she had eaten at JD’s was the candy they’d bought at the little store on the way to his house and an apple.

“Okay, this will be ready in a few minutes. Which friend were you with again?”

“JD,” she says, looking in the fridge for a drink.

“Nothing sugary, not before your dinner,” her mom reminds her. Like she could forget. “So, which college is he planning on going to?”

“Um, he isn’t exactly sure yet,” she says, closing the fridge, the pitcher of juice in her hand, and pouring out a glass for herself. “He might wait a bit, you know.”

“Well, whatever suits him,” her mom says. She pauses putting pasta bake on the plate, frowning slightly. “Ronnie, didn’t you have a friend called JD when you were a kid.”

“Yeah, for a bit.”

“Hm. What are the chances of that? It’s an unusual name.”

“It’s a nickname,” Veronica explains, taking a full plate from her. The mere sight of the pasta, white sauce leaking out of it, is enough to make her mouth water. “His full name’s Jason Dean.” She sits herself at the table, scooping pasta up with a fork. “And anyway, it’s not that weird. They’re the same person.”

“It is?” her mom asks, setting the spoon down. “This JD is the same JD you were friends with as a kid?” Veronica nods, her mouth full of pasta. Her mom wrings the towel in her hands for so long that Veronica frowns.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” she says, smiling even though it doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “That’s odd, that he ended up coming back here.”

“I guess,” Veronica agrees, pushing her pasta around the plate. “Just one of those big coincidences.” Her mom hums in agreement and turns her back to her and Veronica shoves more pasta in her mouth, wishing that she could go just a week without the feeling that there’s something she’s not getting; a puzzle piece that’s missing in her life and leaving a hole, however small, inside her.

“Evening, Ronnie,” her dad greets as he comes in, carrying his jacket in the crook of his elbow and his briefcase dangling from his hand. “Oh, that looks good, hon.” He kisses her on the cheek and takes a plate to the table, sitting across from her, and her mom follows. “Oh hey honey, I got a little something.” Veronica watches as her dad pulls a white envelope out of his jacket and hands it over to her mom. “While in the office I got a call from Uncle Rodney. His wife’s finally pregnant!”

“Aw, how lovely!” her mom sighs. Her mom has a thing for babies, as evidenced by the numerous photos of Veronica as a baby hanging around the hall and along the stairway like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, despite her pigtails and PB&J years being long behind her. Veronica realises how glad she is that she hasn’t brought JD home yet and wonders if it’s at all possible for her to keep him out of her house forever. The last thing she would want is for her mother to be showing off how cute her little one year old diaper less booty looks in her photos. “They’ve been trying for so long. They must be so happy.”

“They are,” he agrees. “So much so that they’ve invited us to their baby shower. I wrote down all the details in there.” Her mom opens up the envelope, her face falling as she reads it.

“Their baby shower in Nelsonville,” she says with a resigned sigh, showing her dad the envelope. “That’s three hours away. There and back. We’ll have to leave early…”

“Well, they have offered to put up anyone who would need to stay overnight in a hotel,” he offers. “And it’s a really nice hotel!”

“I don’t doubt that,” she says, frowning slightly. “And you know how I love Rodney. And Lizzie. But staying overnight… Well, Veronica I guess you’ll have to come with us.”

 _Oh God please no_ is all Veronica can think. The last thing Veronica needs right now is a family getaway. For one, it would be next to impossible to study in a car, or in the middle of a baby shower full of relatives she hasn’t spoken to since… probably Uncle Rodney and Aunt Lizzie’s wedding when she was eleven. Then there’s the other part which is that she doesn’t feel like spending a Friday night around people who last saw her when she had braces and pimples. She might be a loser again but she’s not that much of a loser. She hopes.

“Come on, honey, Veronica’s seventeen. She’s old enough to hold down the fort by herself for a while, right Ronnie?”

“Yeah,” she agree in a flash. “Yeah, I can stay here by myself.”

“I don’t know,” her mom sighs. “You’re still just a kid.” Veronica bites back the fact that Heather Chandler’s parents and Ram’s parents and Kurt’s parents and Heather Duke’s parents all trust them to stay at home alone. Granted, they’re pretty terrible examples, given that at the one sleepover she had been to at Heather Chandler’s house, Duke got very drunk and vomited in Chandler’s bathroom and then there was the Party That Shall Not Be Named at Ram’s house (as JD had taken to calling it, rather dramatically, but she barely minds).

“Mom,” she says instead, choosing her words carefully. “It’s just one night.”

“And she’s nearly eighteen,” her dad agrees. “And she’s responsible. You won’t do anything we’d disapprove of, right sweetheart?”

“Of course not,” she promises. Her mother keeps frowning, so much so that Veronica wonders if frown lines will permanently etch themselves into her mom’s face. Chandler had told her that happens when she had seen Veronica frowning at… well, at something. Veronica sends her a silent look that hopefully conveys the message she wants it to, mainly _please trust that I am a responsible adult who can take care of this house for a whole 48 hours._

“Oh, all right,” she sighs and Veronica breaks out into a grin, her fist punching the air under the table. “But we’re laying out a set of rules, young lady. And we’ll be checking in on you.”

“Done. Yes, whatever you say,” she says almost breathlessly. “Thank you, thank you!”

After dinner and homework and late night TV, Veronica sits against her headboard with her diary sitting out on her lap, biting her lip and wiggling against the pillows, her toes curling into her sheets as she writes that night’s entry.

_Dear diary,_

_I haven’t reached 18 yet but uncork the champagne I’ve reached adulthood!_

_Wait that’s 21. Never mind._

_Point is my parents are letting me have the house to myself for a night while they go off to some baby shower across the state. And I can make my own dinner and turn off the lights before going to bed and lock the front door._

_Wow that sounds really boring when I write it down like that. But I guess it’ll be good practice for college. And it’s just good to know that they (eventually) trust me enough to stay at home alone. And it’s also nice to know I don’t have to hang out at a baby shower._

_If I was Heather, or even still A Heather I guess, I’d probably end up throwing some huge party here. With alcohol and probably weed and around 20 people ending up passed out in the back yard. Maybe I’ll finally get some of that English studying done. Or maybe I can get JD to come over and maybe end up making sense of it all._

Before the ink has even dried on the page, an idea pushes its way into Veronica’s mind. One that almost makes her drop her pen, her mouth hanging open half in shock and half in excitement, with a little bit of she doesn’t even know what. She can picture the lightbulb going off above her head.

_Or maybe if he came over we could… not exactly study?_

She knows her parents wouldn’t approve of it. But then again, they don’t necessarily need to know. Hell, they don’t even know he’s her boyfriend. And in her defence, this is tame compared to what she’s done recently behind her parents’ backs. They still don’t know about the weed she smoked at Ram’s party. Or the exact circumstances of how she and JD met. Compared to that, what’s a movie night (possibly, no, definitely, Halloween themed) with her boyfriend?

_Dear diary, is this my life now? I’m not exactly complaining, but hot damn._

                                                                                                ******

For the first time, Veronica catches JD; it’s too cold to sit outside and wait for him, so she heads into the school as soon as she passes the gate, where she finds him at his locker, lost in some book backed in brown paper. She slows down her pace, her heart fluttering as she creeps along the hall, her hands curling, bending just slightly, ready to pounce, all the while her boyfriend remains lost to the world, stuck in the pages of his book.

So cute, she thinks.

“Boo!” she shouts, jumping behind him and grabbing him by the shoulders. And if that wasn’t enough to make her laugh (read: cackle), his reaction sure is; he jumps out of his skin, his book clattering to the floor as he whirls around, coat flying, to see her. He’s even slightly out of breath; you could think he had just come out of PE rather than had his girlfriend give him a bit of a scare.

“Mean,” he says, jabbing his finger lightly into her chest. “Very, very mean, that’s what you are, Veronica Sawyer.” She giggles and grabs his hand, lacing her fingers through his and swinging them lightly. “And in a very good mood. Anything in particular?”

“Yep,” she says, stepping forwards and closing the space between them. His arm comes around her shoulders and squeezes gently. If other people are watching, she finds she doesn’t care. “So my parents are going out of town next weekend… and I thought you could come over? We could watch movies, eat popcorn, watch more movies…”

“Maybe a little more than watch movies?” he asks cheekily, grinning down at her. She stands up on her tiptoes to look him in the eye, and in anticipation of something she guesses (hopes) is coming her way.

“Depends if you’re a good boy,” she replies, brushing her nose against his, then her lips, then kissing him in the middle of the hallway, her hands trailing along his waist, burying in the fabric of his coat. His lips are impossibly soft against hers, moving seemingly at her command.

“Miss Sawyer!” a shrill voice snaps from behind them. Blushing furiously, Veronica turns around to see Miss Fleming glaring daggers at the pair of them. “Mr Dean. You should be aware by now that there is a school policy against public displays of affection as such.”

“Yes ma’am,” JD mutters, his fingers wrapped around Veronica’s wrist, his thumb running against the side of her hand. “Sorry ma’am.”

“It won’t happen again,” Veronica promises.

“I should hope not,” Miss Fleming warns. “Otherwise it’s a detention.” She casts another disapproving glare at them before hurrying away, her long green skirt billowing above her brown boots.

“Can she really give us a detention for kissing?” JD asks, smirking slightly.

“Probably,” she replies. “I’d rather not risk it.”

“As you wish.” Veronica giggles, remembering her conversation with Martha over the weekend. She pictures him in a Westley costume and it’s a very, very nice thought. JD frowns at her grin, his fingers brushing over her cheeks. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Just… One of the movies we watch needs to be The Princess Bride.”

“Isn’t that that movie Martha loves?” he asks.

“It is a very, very good movie,” she tells him.

“If you insist. Although I think in the spirit of Halloween, there should be at least one scary movie on the list.”

“All of them can be scary movies,” she promises. “With the obvious exception of The Princess Bride.” Their hands join as he walks her to her homeroom, their steps deliberately slow. The closer they get to her homeroom, the more Veronica cringes, Fleming’s disapproving look clear as day in her mind. “Hey… Can we go somewhere else?”

“Not up for homeroom right now?” he asks. “Don’t blame you. Come on.” She secretly wants to ask if they can go out to the garden-their garden, she nearly naively calls it, but by the time they get there they’d have hardly any time at all. Instead she lets him take her up the stairs and he sits up on the windowsill, the huge window overlooking the front courtyard. She sits down next to him, their knees touching.

“I also think that in the Spirit of Halloween, we should dress up,” she says. His laughs seems to ring off the walls as his smile lights up his face.

“Wish you’d given me more notice,” he sighs. “I could have put something really scary together if I had had more time. I’d have made you scream your little socks off.”

“You mean what I did to you just two minutes ago?” she teases.

“Okay, fair,” he admits. “But I’m sure I can whip up something equal parts scary and sexy for this weekend.” Veronica laughs, watching his face; he moves his lips with no sound coming out, like there’s a whole story waiting to be told. She brushes her elbow against his, hoping to coax whatever it is he wants to say out of him. “I used to be real good at Halloween. One of the old places I lived in, there was this costume contest in town. I was 15. And I won. Dressed up as Dracula. I spent weeks rereading the book to make it accurate.”

“Oh,” she groans. “That is just so nerdy.”

“Look who’s talking, little miss study cards,” he says, realisation dawning on him. “Wait is this your way of taking a break?”

“A little,” she confesses. “Just you know… maybe you kind of had a point.”

“I did,” he says, smirking. “And I’m glad you took it, baby.” He presses a tiny whisper of a kiss to her temple.

“So they’re leaving on Friday morning… so maybe we could walk home together? Grab a stash of candy from the store.” At the mention of Friday, his face falls slightly before he tries to cover it up with his usual disarming smile. Veronica really loves that smile, the dimple in just one of his cheeks, the way he raises his eyebrows slightly. It makes her giddier than she has any right to be, but she can’t help but be concerned with it as well. Over the weeks, she’s come to realise that it can-and nine times out of ten does-mean he’s hiding something from her.

“I don’t think I can,” he says, threading his fingers through hers. “I have a thing after school on Friday. With Claire. She’d kill me if I missed it. What if I just meet you at your place instead? With candy in hand.”

“Sounds great,” she says, scooting even closer to him and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

“So what are your folks leaving for?” he asks.

“My uncle and aunt’s baby shower,” she replies, pulling a face.

“And they trust you to not burn the house down?”

“Are you surprised?” she asks, giggling slightly. “You think I’m going to burn the place down?”

“Of course not,” he says with a smile. “I just think it’s impressive that they trust you so much.”

“Not too much,” she sighs. “There was a bit of grovelling and begging on me and my dad’s parts. And they said they’re going to write out a list of instructions for me. And I’m pretty sure my mom is freezing pasta bake and lasagne as we speak.”

“So she’s a fan of Italian food?” Veronica snorts and nudges him in the chest with her elbow.

“It’s just… I can cook myself.” JD raises an eyebrow at her. “Okay kind of. Sort of.” He raises his eyebrows even higher. “I can make burgers! Case in point, I do not need my mom making me some and freezing it! Or telling all our neighbours that I’m home alone so they can check up on me.”

“She’s just looking out for you,” he tells her softly. “You know? You’re her little girl and all that.”

“Okay, now you sound like her,” she says. “She’s also writing out a list of rules that she’s going to pin to the fridge.”

“Is ‘no boys’ one of those rules?” he asks. “Because if it is, I may have to side with your mom on this one.”

“Oh, Mr Rebel over here is going to give me a rule following lecture,” she says, poking his cheek to show she’s not serious. He pulls a face at her; closing his eyes and scrunching up his nose. “And it would be, if they even knew that you’re… you know…” She waves her hand around in the air as JD looks on amused. “My boyfriend. Although it still might be.” She used to talk about Ram and Kurt and they knew she had gone to their homecoming party. Realisation slowly dawns on her that her parents might actually suspect she might be dating one of them and it’s enough to make her shudder.

“So as far as your parents are concerned, I’m just a really good looking friend in a big coat who sometimes walks you home from school?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, biting her lip as anxiety begins creeping into her gut and sinking its claws into her. “I promise I’ll tell them, it’s just…”

“Hey, Nica,” he interrupts in an easy voice, cupping her cheek. “Don’t be sorry about it. Take all the time you need.” She puts her hand over his on her cheek, sighing as the storm in her mind calms.

“Thanks,” she says. “I just want to keep them out of this for a little longer. Once they know I have a boyfriend…” She rolls her eyes. “They’ll be all over us. At least Claire’s calm about it.”

“You only think that because you don’t live with her,” he tells her. “And don’t have to drive in the same car with her where she sits with that dumb ‘I know exactly what you’re doing and think you two are super cute together’ face.” Veronica snorts again and even JD manages to smile, fighting against his cool, slightly irritated exterior.

The bell for homeroom rings through the hallway, attacking their ears. Veronica wrinkles her nose and groans as she and JD jump off the wall. She still blushes at the idea of having to face Fleming. At least no one else in her class knows, but she knows and that’s enough to make her stomach drop every time she thinks of looking at her. Still JD kisses her head and bids her goodbye before walking up to his own homeroom, so that softens the blow. Sort of.

She looks out the window and sees the red and brown leaves falling off the trees and scattering across the wall. September’s gone and past now and they’re well into October. And with Halloween looming, November is approaching fast. Almost two months of senior year down, she realise, and eight left to go.

                                                                                                *****

On Thursday afternoon, JD offers to walk Veronica some of the way home from school. He gives her a red liquorice from a white paper bag in his pocket and she takes it, letting it dangle out of her mouth or from her hand as they walk through the chilly streets of Sherwood. Veronica thanks God she had the good sense to dig out a pair of black tights from the back of her wardrobe. Still, the cold is an excuse to cuddle into her boyfriend, who seems to never leave the house without that black trench coat. She wonders if he’ll still be wearing it during the summer. He kicks up a pile of leaves as they walk, making her laugh as they rain down on her. She runs her hand through her hair, hoping she got them all out. He doesn’t make an effort at all, and so there’s a red leaf stuck to his dark curls. She decides she won’t tell him; he looks cute that way.

“Hey, look,” she says, pointing at one of the houses they pass. The front porch is adorned with four pumpkins; one that’s probably meant to be the “Daddy” pumpkin complete with a moustache, a “Mommy” pumpkin and two little baby pumpkins. Aside from that, there’s a scarecrow, with an emphasis on ‘scare’, in the front yard; his head cocked to the left at an unnatural looking angle and a wide grin. Fake cobwebs hang from the awning, as do large fuzzy spiders. To top it all off, there’s four little broomsticks propped up against the wall.

“Wow,” he says, letting out a low whistle. “Someone’s going all out for Halloween.”

“That’s the Addamses,” she explains. “They go all out every holiday, but for some reason they put extra effort into Halloween.” She tugs on his hand and they keep walking so that her neighbours don’t call the cops on them. “When I was a kid, I was so jealous that they got all the cool stuff.”

“You wanted a big creepy scarecrow?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

“Yes!” she squeaks. “Okay, maybe not the scarecrow. But all the broomsticks and crap. My parents don’t have any of that. We’ve got a spooky banner and a toy bat sitting in the window. And a pumpkin that needs carving. But they’re leaving before we can get it done.”

“Is Veronica Sawyer a Halloween nerd?” he teases, making her roll her eyes fondly. “If you want, we can carve the pumpkin tomorrow night.”

“Really?” she asks. “You want to spend your Friday night carving pumpkins with me?”

“Why not?” His smile dips slightly, his hand tightening around hers, and Veronica feels her heart clench in her chest. She can read him by now, and she knows that this is a warning sign. “Speaking of tomorrow…” _He can’t come, he’s ditching because he doesn’t want to spend his Friday night with me on my couch watching movies._ “Can I make a request?”

“Sure.”

“Whatever movies we watch… can we try to make sure there’s not a lot of explosions?”

Oh. That’s different.

“I know it’s a weird request, I know. It’s just… um explosions kind of make me…uh…” He talks quickly, avoiding her eye. “I just don’t like them and um-”

“Hey.” She steps closer to him, cupping his face with her hand. “It’s okay, J. You don’t want explosions; we won’t watch anything with explosions.”

“Really?” he says, his voice thin and breaking, his eyes wide.

“Yeah. Really.”

“Thanks, Ronnie.” He leans in for a moment, his arms moving around her waist, and she opens her mouth just slightly, her toes curling in anticipation until he stops at the last moment, pulling himself back. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” The rest of their walk back to her place is fine, full of easy and light chatter and flirting and a whisper of a kiss on her head as he leaves her just before she reaches her gate, but as she watches him walk away, she gets more and more worried about him.

 _Dear diary,_ she writes that night as her parents get ready for their trip.

_I know JD has his secrets. But is it wrong that I want him to open up to me anyway? I know it’s none of my business why he doesn’t want to watch anything with explosions but I can tell he’s hiding something from me. And I know he’s allowed to do that-heck we’ve only been together for a month-but… I don’t like him not telling me something, even if I shouldn’t feel that._

_Maybe I want to take care of him. Maybe I want to be his shoulder to cry on._

_Jesus,_ she realises with an impending sense of dread weighing down her stomach _I sound like Fleming._

After school on Friday, Veronica runs through the candy aisle of the local supermarket with more enthusiasm than should be allowed given her age. She swings a basket in her hand and holds a twenty dollar bill in the other, trying to work out the right amount of candy needed to keep her and JD happy and also keep the little trick-or-treaters of her neighbourhood satisfied. She’s seen what happens to houses who don’t give little 13 year old boys enough candy to see them through to December, and she’s determined not to fall victim to them. Climbing up a tree to remove toilet paper from the branches or wiping egg from her living room window don’t sound like very romantic activities.

She drops a bag of fun size mars bars into her basket, then another bag containing bags of M&M’s, sitting alongside a packet of fun size store brand chocolate bars and a bag of Chupa Chubs. She taps the plastic basket against her leg, cocking her head to the side and mentally weighing up the pros and cons of Snickers versus Skittles and trying to reason with the little voice telling her to get both. JD had told her to just “get whatever” when she had asked him yesterday, playing with her hair and telling her that he trusts her judgement. It makes her smile, really, to hear that. But it also makes her wish he was here so she could smack his head against the wall and make him pick a god damned candy. Rather than be at his mystery appointment he still won’t tell her about.

She shakes her head, banishing that thought from her mind, pushing away the anxiousness that had started slithering into her stomach. For tonight, all she will allow herself to worry about is whether or not she has enough candy and if her video player will eat the videos that she still has to rent.

She frowns at the basket, noticing how there seems to be one gap in her little sugar-filled metropolis. Surely one more little bag wouldn’t do anyone any harm, right? She looks around at her options before her eyes are drawn down the aisle, away from the packaged candies with brands she could recite in her sleep. A large orange plastic sign hangs over a shelf near the end with black, shaky lettering and cobwebs drawn in thick lines advertises a special deal; half price for any of the Halloween themed cookies. Veronica chuckles to herself, picking up two boxes, one containing shortbreads shaped like ghosts, complete with black-icing eyes and open mouths, and gingerbread ones shaped like grinning pumpkins. After some deliberation, she puts the pumpkin shaped ones in her basket, hoping to match the pumpkin in her house, and her mouth watering at the thought of warm gingerbread.

Two hours later, she realises she made the right decision when her and JD are munching on those gingerbread pumpkins while carving a pumpkin of their own. Well, co-carving. Well, if she’s honest, he’s doing a lot of the carving. But she drew the face, so she decides it was a team effort.

What wasn’t a team effort was their costumes. She had just pulled a black dress out of her closet, drawn on some whiskers with eyeliner and put on a pair of black cat ears she picked up while candy shopping and renting videos, not thinking twice. JD, on the other hand, probably thought more than twice. She opened the door to him leaning against her doorframe in a pair of tight leather trousers and a slightly-open white shirt with sleeves, a black waistcoat with gold buttons and gold thread weaving an intricate pattern around them. Even his trusty trench coat that she could use as a way to find him in a crowd was gone, replaced by a black cape (lined with red) he had since draped over Veronica’s own shoulders. To complete the look was a black mask around his eyes, and a red neckerchief sitting under his chin.

“Stand and deliver, your candy or your life!” he had declared when she opened the door, stepping inside as she fall against the wall giggling.

“Wow,” she had said, taking in the entire ensemble. Seeming to read her mind, he gives her a spin to show it all off. “That is quite the get-up. Let me guess; Dread Pirate Roberts?”

“No,” he had replied, looking slightly offended. “Dick Turpin. Famous 18th century highway man? Ended up being hanged for his crimes?”

“Dick Turpin,” she had said, the name sparking something in her mind. “Didn’t he have a horse called Black Bess or something? And was meant to be like, really hot.”

“He probably did have the horse,” he had told her. “But she wasn’t called Black Bess.”

“Well, at least you’re still hot.”

Now she kneels on one of the chairs surrounding her kitchen table, watching the intensity in his face as he carves out the face in the pumpkin. With the coat gone, she can just about see the muscles in his back moving beneath this shirt. His tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth and he makes no effort to push back the hair that falls in front of his face.

“What?” he asks, his eye catching hers and realising she’s been watching him rather than his pumpkin.

“Nothing,” she says. She jumps off the chair and comes up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing his shoulder. She rests her chin on his shoulder and looks at his half-finished pumpkin. He’s carved one eye and half a mouth so far. “I’m just really glad my parents went away for the weekend.”

The fully carved pumpkin sits next to the fireplace in Veronica’s living room, a candle glowing inside him (JD insists it’s a him and also insists that his name is Wilbur Dean-Sawyer, first of his name). Veronica and JD place an overflowing bowl of candy in between them and a stack of videos at Veronica’s feet. JD opens a packet of M&Ms and throws one in the air and catches it in his mouth with a wink. If he was trying to impress her, he did succeed. Veronica leans against him as the opening credits of Nightmare On Elm Street come on.

“Have you seen this one before?” she asks as his arm comes around her.

“I saw it when it came out,” he says. “One of the bigger kids snuck me in.”

“So you illegally saw it?”

“Oh are you a cop?” he jokes, planting a quick, candy-flavoured kiss on her lips. “Don’t worry, it’s not too scary.”

“Are you kidding?” she asks. “J, I’ve watched this it’s so scary.”

“Aw don’t worry, Nica,” he says gently, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “I’ll be here to protect you.” Veronica nuzzles ever closer to him, as his knuckles run up and down her spine, his cheek resting on her hair. He tightens his grip on her in the scene with the girl in the boiler room. She figures she must look more scared than she actually is, although there is something in the way that he holds her that sends her the message that it might be the other way around. From where her head is on his chest, she can’t see his face, but she thinks she could guess what it would say if she could. Or she could be overthinking things.

She plants a soft kiss to his hand, just in case.

Around the third movie, which ends up being An American Werewolf In London, Veronica begins feeling the sugar rush slipping off her. She rolls a Snickers between her fingers mindlessly, the paper crackling beneath them as her body weight sinks further and further into the sofa. She has no intention of eating the thing, her stomach full enough and squishing and groaning slightly She blinks heavily and murmurs involuntarily, the soft noise escaping from the back of her throat. The weight of JD’s arm against her chest is better than any blanket, and her side has been pressed against his for so long that she imagines them sewn together. Any attempt to break it would be complicated and messy, so why bother? She rubs her cheek against him as drowsiness begins to settle into her bones, all the while watching the movie unfold before her.

That is, until the kitchen phone rings and sends a shock directly to her heart.

“Fuck!” she yells, jumping away from JD. The break in contact makes her feel cold and clammy on that side, her body wanting nothing more than to melt back into him. Her brain still feels fuzzy and disoriented, like a TV on static, and her heart has jumped from pumping at a soft gentle rhythm to going at probably a hundred miles an hour. She runs a hand through her hair and over face, groaning as the phone continues ringing through the hall. “This better be important. Otherwise I’m going to flip.”

“Was it interrupting something important?” he asks, leaning heavily on the arm on the sofa and smirking. She chuckles and presses a kiss to his hair.

“Very.” The phone keeps ringing, pounding against her brain, and she wants to scream. “Can you pause the movie for me?”

“Sure.”

Veronica half-walks, half-stumbles into the kitchen, the phone continuing to ring and ring and ring like a nagging kid tugging on her arm until she gives it her attention.

“Hello?” she asks into the receiver, leaning against the cold white wall.

“Veronica?” a small voice asks on the other end. Veronica pushes herself off the wall and stands on her own two feet. She recognises the voice, of course; only Heather MacNamara could have a voice so small and so delicate. Except it’s also thick and shaking and she can hear her breathing heavily on the other end and that’s so far from what she’s seen of her so far, the small storm clad in a yellow skirt. The one with a kind smile but a cruel steel underneath. “Veronica?”

“Heather?” she asks.  She turns slightly and sees JD leaning against the doorframe, frowning.

“Veronica, I need help,” she says. “Can you come pick me up?”

“Pick you up?” She turns and glances at the kitchen clock. “Heather, it’s almost 11:30.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” She gasps on the other end of her line, dissolving into snuffles and sniffs and tiny wet coughs that make a lump form in Veronica’s throat. “I just need help right now.”

“Okay, okay,” she says gently. “Slow down. Where are you?”

“I’m… I’m near Ram’s house. I’m at the end of Ram’s street. You know where they payphone is? Outside the Chinese take-out place. There.” Veronica visualises it in her mind, vaguely remembering passing a take-out place on the way to the Homecoming Party of Death. She concentrates harder, trying to force herself to recall any detail that might make it clearer.

“The one with the cat in the window?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m there can you just please come and pick me up? I know you’re probably busy and all I just, I need help.”

“It’s okay,” Veronica assures her. “It’s okay. We’re on our way, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Just hang tight. I don’t have car, but can you walk back to my place?”

“Yeah, yeah I can do that.”

“Okay, well just hang tight and we’ll be there really soon to get you, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

She hangs up, her breathing shaky, and turns to JD, who is in turn biting his lip, his face a shade paler.

“That didn’t sound good. What was it? Who was it?”

“Heather,” she says. “Heather Mac. I don’t know she just-she sounds like she’s in trouble and she needs help.” She makes for the front door. “I’m going to pick her up, my parents took the car and even if they didn’t I can’t even drive. I’m just going to walk her back here. It’s not even that far. You can just stay here and-”

“Are you out of your mind?” he asks, draping her coat around her shoulders and holding his own in his hand. “Veronica, I’m not letting you walk around alone at this time. There’s all sorts of creeps and weirdos out there. Plus, Heather might feel safer with two of us there rather than one.”

Despite everything, Veronica smiles and reaches up to kiss his cheek.

“Thank you.” She puts on the coat properly and opens the door, lifting her key from the rack. “Now come on. Sooner we leave, sooner we can come back.”

It’s not difficult for them to spot Heather. In her yellow minidress (emphasis on mini) and matching bunny ears, she stands out amongst the dark sky and silhouettes of houses. Her slight frame is curled in on itself, and when they get closer Veronica can see her hugging her elbows. It’s only when they’re next to her that she sees the violet bruise below her eye, the scarlet scrape on her chin and the mascara-tinged tears over her delicate cheeks that Veronica feels the candy she feasted on earlier turning sour in her belly.

“Heather?” she whispers gently. Her breath forms smoke in the glow of the streetlight. “Heather?” Heather makes a meek noise that Veronica takes as a response. Her hand sits in front of her, halfway between her and Heather, feeling cold and clammy and dead at the end of her arm, unsure of what to do. “Heather, it’s Veronica.” Heather’s head turns to her, the bruise catching the light.

“You came,” she states in a small voice.

“Yeah,” she says softly. She decides to take a delicate approach, like Heather is a small wounded animal. She gives JD a nervous glance and he nods, his eyes still fixed on Heather, his expression still confused and shocked, but somehow it makes her feel less wrong. “Come on. We’ll walk you back to my place.”

“We?”

“Yeah, JD’s here too.” Heather turns slightly and looks at him, probably just seeing him for the first time.

“Oh,” is all she says.

“It’s just us. We’re going to talk you back to my house and then we can work something out okay? You can call your parents to come pick you up or something? Sound good?” Heather nods, her movements so small Veronica is sure she wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been standing so close to her. “Okay, let’s go.”

Behind Heather, JD takes his cloak off and drapes it around her shoulders. Her face remains a fixed, stony mask, her eyes empty and faraway, but her fingers, decorated with yellow nail polish, grasp the edges tightly, her shoulders burying into it. Veronica gives him a grateful look, to which he responds with a quick half-smile, before they start walking back home, Veronica in front and holding her hand, JD behind her with a slight grip on her shoulders, and sometimes acting as Veronica’s eyes when she’s too nervous to take her own on Heather.

Getting home easier said than done, especially with seemingly shell-shocked Heather in tow. Her steps are small and slow and she wobbles in her kitten heels, which is odd for her. Veronica has witnessed first-hand her trotting around school in similar little shoes, never having to look down to check, gliding around as easily as Veronica would in her slippers. She doesn’t look drunk and there’s no smell of alcohol on her, but she can’t help but wonder. A single tear runs down Heather’s face and she sniffles gently, accompanying the sounds of a party going on not too far from them and a fireworks display going on, the sparks lighting up the sky.

Selfishly, she wishes she was watching fireworks with JD instead of doing this. And then she hates herself for thinking that.

When they get to the house, JD runs ahead and opens the door for them as she helps Heather in. The TV is switched off, an open, empty video case lying on the carpet and their candy abandoned in the bowl. Their pumpkin lantern has gone out now and the cushions are sitting askew from when Veronica pulled her legs up on the sofa and kicked them around as she tried to get comfortable.

Veronica helps Heather sit down. She seems slightly better now; her breathing more regular, her hands no longer shaking, but they still grab onto Veronica for dear life, like she’s the last lifeboat on the Titanic. JD taps Veronica’s shoulder lightly before disappearing out the living room door, heading in the direction of the kitchen, where she hears the sound of the tap running.

“Heather,” Veronica asks, focussing on the girl in front of her. “Heather, what happened?”

“I-it’s nothing,” she mumbles, looking down at her hand. She gasps suddenly, her head snapping up to meet Veronica’s eyes with such ferocity Veronica can feel her own neck cracking. “I’m so sorry. I ruined your and JD’s night and you had to walk all the way out there in the cold and it’s over nothing and I should just-”

“Heather. Heather!” Veronica tries to keep her voice as calm and quiet as possible, but it’s hard when Heather is frantically talking over her and her shoulders are squirming beneath her hands as she tries to leave. “Heather, please. Just tell me what happened.” Heather falls still just before they reach the door and Veronica’s glad for it; she really didn’t want to have to man handle Heather onto the couch. Her little pink mouth opens and closes like the goldfish Veronica had when she was a kid.

Behind her, the door creaks open and JD sidesteps around her.

“Here,” he says, handing her a glass. “Got you some water. And these,” He waves a bag of frozen peas. “Found them in the freezer. That’s not too bad but it’ll still need some ice.”

“Not too bad?” Heather asks, hope lining the edge of her voice as she takes the bag.

“I’ve seen worse,” he admits with a shrug. “I’ve had worse.” Heather huffs a laugh, probably thinking he’s joking. Veronica on the other hand turns to look at him, her fingers brushing against his. If they didn’t have more pressing issues, she would definitely be digging into that.

“Heather,” she says instead. “What happened?”

Heather looks down, her lower lip beginning to tremble. All sorts of horror stories fill Veronica’s head as she looks at the bag of peas held against Heather’s eye. Anyone who was anyone at Westerberg was at that party and that leaves a wide range of suspects. Including one mythic bitch with a red scrunchie. Veronica scolds herself, telling herself that while Chandler’s bad, she can’t be that bad. Right?

“Kurt,” she says eventually. “Kurt happened.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” JD mutters.

“It was… we were at the party,” she explains. “We were dancing, having fun. And Kurt and I started kissing a little-sorry you didn’t need to know that.” Her cheeks turn pink at her admission. “Anyway, I got bored fast. I stepped back; said I needed some air. And I wanted to get another drink. Really I just wanted to stop kissing him. And he didn’t really like that.”

Veronica feels as though her chest is collapsing in on itself and her skin is crawling with ants. A shiver runs down her back and JD wraps his arm around her waist. She leans into the embrace, more grateful than she could be able to say right now. She’s not sure she can speak at all.

“So I walked away and he grabbed my hand. Asked for just a few more minutes.” She takes a big gulp of water. “I said no. I pushed him off and went to find Heather. Or Heather. Or just… anyone. Then he started yelling stuff at me.” She frantically wipes tears away from her face. “I didn’t listen. I knew if I just ignored him he’d stop but then- then he pushed me.” Veronica flinched, feeling an invisible punch in her stomach. Heather herself winces, at the pain from the cut or bruise, she doesn’t know. “That’s how I got these. And everyone was looking at me. And then Heather-Heather Duke came over and told me to go clean up. And they were all staring and people were pointing and my heart started beating real fast-” She gasps loudly, her shoulders shaking as she cries. “And I just knew I had to leave!” She takes another long drink of water, trying to calm herself down. “And I didn’t know who else to call but you.”

Veronica doesn’t know if she should feel flattered or scared or outright furious. JD seems to be furious enough for the both of them; his hand curls into a tight fist at his side and his mouth is set in a thin line, his breathing coming out shakily and his shoulders tight and tense.

“Heather… I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Kurt… he’s a jerk. He’s such a jerk.” Heather nods quickly, trying and failing to compose herself with deep breaths. Veronica tries to think of some logical course of action, the heavy responsibility pushing down on her shoulders. “Um, maybe we should call your parents? Get them to pick you up?”

“Yeah,” Heather says, nodding. “Yeah, yeah. Um, can I use your phone?”

“Of course.” Veronica leads her into the hall, flipping the light on so she can see better. It’s the only light they have on in the whole house and it makes her blink a few times and Heather squint and nearly fall into the wall. She makes to walk back into the living room, but her feet stop in the doorway instead and her body leans against the doorframe as she listens to Heather dialling the phone.

“Daddy?” she hears her ask. She winces at how impossibly small she sounds; how much she sounds like a kid and unlike the tempest she is at school. This doesn’t sound like someone who would eat at the Heathers’ table it sounds like someone Chandler would spread nasty rumours about. “Daddy, can you come pick me up? I’m at my friend Veronica’s house. No, I just left the party early. Nothing happened.” The lie sends a shiver running down Veronica’s spine. “The address? It’s um, 6-”

“652 Wilbert Way,” Veronica whispers into the hall.

“652 Wilbert Way,” Heather repeats into the receiver, shooting Veronica a grateful smile. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Daddy.” She hangs up quickly and leans her forehead against the plastered wall, letting out a long breath. Veronica wrings her hands, feeling like a dead weight in her own home. Heather approaches Veronica slowly, her brown eyes wide and afraid. “My dad said he’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Those ten minutes may just be the longest of her life. JD puts the frozen peas back in the fridge and asses Heather’s eye under the hallway light, telling her it’ll be gone within a few days. “Just put some make up on it” he says, “Concealer and a little setting powder.” She doesn’t ask how he knows that. Heather stands in front of the window, picking at her nails and jumping at ever car that passes while Veronica sits on the sofa, gripping the edge so tightly she wonders if she’ll leave a permanent dent. JD comes back in and sits beside her, running his hand up and down her arm. She leans into it just slightly and even then she feels bad about it. She’s far from the injured party here, but that doesn’t take away the feeling like there’s a heavy, cold weight sitting in her chest, dragging her whole body down. And the longer she looks at Heather and that bruise on her eye, the further down it takes her.

Heather jumps away from the window as a pair of bright white headlights approach, turning to Veronica, who takes it as her cue to stand. She rushes over towards her with her arms out and Veronica expects a hug only for her to stop that the last minute.

“Thank you,” she sighs. “Thank you so much. You didn’t have to-”

“It’s okay,” she replies. “You’re welcome, I mean. I mean, I did have to.” Heather looks like she might burst right here in the living room, giving a small smile and letting out a short breath.

“Thank you,” she says again. Veronica walks to her to the door and doesn’t stop watching her until she gets into her dad’s car and the car peels out of her driveway and down the road, back to their nicer neighbourhood and their bigger, cleaner house.

And then she lets herself fall apart.

When she stumbles backwards, she isn’t even surprised that JD is there behind her, wrapping her in an embrace and kissing her head. He reaches over and closes the front door before leading her into the living room, his arms wrapping around her shaking shoulders.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“They’re such assholes,” she whispers, shocked at the venom laced in her voice and then she realises she isn’t upset or scared-at least not as much as she thought she was. She’s angry. “Kurt. Ram. Heather Chandler. Heather Duke. They’re all fucking assholes.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” he agrees, kissing her head once, twice, three times like each kiss can calm her down.

“I just want-” It doesn’t matter what she wants, she realises. She might never see it. JD wraps his arms tighter around her and kisses her neck, sighing against her skin. “I just want high school to be a nice place. I want people to talk to each other and I want everyone to get along and I don’t want stupid cliques and football players who slut shame girls and slap them around for not kissing them!” She realises she’s screaming by the end, so hard her throat is getting raw. She curls in so that all of her fits into JD’s lap and her head is under his chin. Her cheeks flush red and she wants to get up and straighten herself out and stop crying over something so stupid, but with JD’s arms around her and him kissing her head, she’s not sure she can. She feels every bottled up emotion and flicker of pain she’s felt watching this happy kids turning into vindictive monsters over the course of four years finally build up and release all at once. “They weren’t always like this.”

“Oh?”

“They weren’t.” She shakes her head against his chest. “Back in kindergarten, they weren’t like that. Kurt, Ram, the Heathers… none of them. We just got along with each other; you know. We were all friends.”

“Then what happened?”

“High school,” she grumbles into his shirt. “We all got bigger and everything went to hell.” She draws circles on his shirt, her cheek pressed against his heart. “Can you stay over?” She presses a kiss to his chest. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to be alone right now. Not after-after that.”

“Fairly certain this goes against all your parents’ set rules,” he teases, kissing her hair. “Let me call Claire.” They keep a tight grip on each other’s hands as they wander into the hall, the light still on from when Heather had called her dad, and JD dials the number with one hand. He swings their hands gently as they wait, coaxing a small smile out of Veronica.

“Hello there, it’s me,” he says into the phone. “Hey Claire-yes I know-just, can I stay over at Veronica’s?” He rolls his eyes as Claire talks on the other end. “No, I know what you said just… look Veronica doesn’t want to be home alone right now?” He takes a small glance at her, mouthing ‘I’m sorry’.

‘It’s fine,’ she mouths in reply.

“Something happened and she doesn’t want to be left alone. No, her parents aren’t home, I told you they’re out of town.” Claire says something and JD bows his head and rubs his forehead looking over at Veronica anxiously.

“J, if you can’t stay, it’s okay,” she whispers. “It was stupid to ask; I’ll be fine on my own.”

‘No,’ he mouths, shaking his head. ‘It’s fine.’

“Claire, I’ll take them first thing when I get home…. Okay fine, home before ten. Thank you.” He hangs up the phone and turns to Veronica with a grin. “I’m all yours baby.”

In other circumstances, Veronica would love hearing those words. He’d say that and she would probably grin wickedly and close any distance between their bodies. She’d press a kiss to his lips, tangling her fingers in his dark locks before taking him upstairs and making every part of him hers. That’s what she’d probably do, if she were hearing those words in an ideal situation.

Instead she stumbles forewords into his arms, wrapping herself around him. She blinks heavily, both drying her tears and fighting her own exhaustion, and mumbles something incoherent against his shoulder.

“I think it’s time to call it a night,” he says gently. He doesn’t have to tell her twice. His arm comes up under her legs and he lifts her up, carrying her up the stairs.

“So chivalrous,” she jokes as they climb the stairs together, but her laugh is empty. Despite him carrying her, she doesn’t feel helpless like maybe she should.

He kicks open her bedroom door and she wriggles out of his arms and climbs onto her bed, slipping out of her dress and pulling on her pyjamas. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees JD looking out the window as she changes, apparently fascinated by her mother’s flower beds.

“It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked,” she teases. He looks back to her, with a chuckle.

“No, but like you said, Ronnie, I’m chivalrous.” She grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down on top of her, tickling his nose and mouth with tiny kisses. They come to a comfortable position with her right on top of him, her head in the crook of his neck and her legs in between his and her arm flung across his waist. He keeps his fingers running through her hair at a steady, soothing rhythm which does nothing to help with the fatigue that’s weighing her down and making her sink into her bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I just want everything to go back the way it was,” she sighs. “Before high school. Before middle school, even. Before we all decided that being popular and pretty and rich was more important than being a good person.” She groans into his chest, cringing at herself. She made that decision once herself and she can’t forget it. “I know how stupid I sound.”

“You do not sound stupid,” he assures her.

“Things were just better back then,” she goes on. “And I keep thinking maybe we can be like that again. Maybe. And then stuff like this happens and the real world comes in.” A faint blush creeps over her cheeks. “Sorry for unloading this all on you.”

“Don’t be,” he tells her. “What else are boyfriends for?” She smirks against his chest and blinks rapidly. She feels the pressure of a kiss against her head. “Now go to sleep, Ronnie.”

She snuggles into him, one arm coming around his back and holding him tightly as her breath starts to even out and she treads the fine line between awake and asleep. Somewhere in her tired, drained mind, she realises that in a few short days, October will turn to November and she’ll have two months of her senior year, her last year in Sherwood behind her. Slivers of different emotions and trains of thought begin to trickle int other mind and nearly wake her, but she pushes them away, in part due to her overwhelming tiredness and also, she suspects, to the light feeling of her boyfriend’s fingers on her back. She gives into it gladly, falling sleep with his fingers in her hair, letting out a small whimper as she curls up into some sort of ball, with no assholes jocks or mean girls or crying ex-friends able to scare her or freak her out in here.

So much for her night off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is September too early for Halloween themed chapters?  
> Also yeah I have a soft spot for MacNamara. Also also I think this is the longest chapter of this fic so far!  
> Anyways, thanks for reading!  
> I'm trying to keep to monthly updates, but now that I'm back at uni updates might take a bit longer. Please be patient with me. But I'm sure you will be because I love y'all.  
> Spoiler/preview for the next chapter: I stat developing a secondary ship :O But there's still plenty of JDronica fun/angst to be had.


	10. Chapter 10

Monday, first period is American History. This class is not too bad, the content is interesting enough to keep him engaged most of the time, and the majority of his classmates seem to have taken the hint that he prefers to be left alone and drifted on to other things. Some have even offered friendly smiles or comments. One had even let him borrow her notes when he had had to miss a class once. Kurt, Heather MacNamara and Heather Chandler are all in the class with him, but they lost interest in him a few weeks ago most likely due to his lack of a reaction. Deep breaths, like he’s been taught. In for eight, out for eight, pretend they’re not there. His hand still curled into a fist under the table whenever they came in his direction but no one ever saw it. Still, all in all, his first class of the week isn’t too bad.

Not too bad. It’s a phrase he’s found himself using more and more lately. He’s used it to describe a number of things so far; a good handful of his classes, the cafeteria food, a select few of his classmates, Claire, even the town itself. So many things have moved up to ‘not too bad’.  And there are certain things he would go beyond ‘not too bad’ for. It’s a good feeling. Really good, in fact. The idea of having so many things to actually enjoy in one place. To not look at everything with low expectations or see them all as ‘could be worse’. It’s nice, actually enjoying things. Even if it does mean Claire has that annoyingly proud smile on her face and no doubt gushes over it all with his social worker. He guesses that’s a small price to pay.

“Hey.” A small voice next to him draws him out of his thoughts. It’s a little surprising; the only two people who would come up to him are probably Martha and Veronica and neither one of them are in this class. Still, he doesn’t dwell on it as he turns around slightly and lowers his book, expecting it to be someone who sits in the back row with him and needs to borrow notes or something. Instead, he finds little Heather MacNamara, who clutches her yellow binder close to her chest like she’s scared someone might snatch it right out of her hands. As if anyone would dare. She’s a Heather, which means she is untouchable.

“Hi,” he says, slight caution in his voice. He’s only spoken to this girl once, and even then she was more interested in talking to Veronica than him. Even if she had given him a grateful smile when he handed her those frozen peas. The shiner is gone entirely now, probably hidden under concealer and foundation, but there’s still a red cut on her chin that’s only nasty if you look at it up close.

“Is anyone sitting here?” She gestures to the empty seat beside him. He looks down at it and up at her, taking in her hunched shoulders and anxious looking brown eyes, the way her perfect teeth bite into her lip. He also realises that she isn’t wearing any lipstick.

“No,” he answers, waving his hand at it.

“Could I sit here?” she asks just as he is about to go back into his book. She pulls on her skirt and the sleeves of her jacket, seeming unable to be still. “It’s okay if you don’t-”

“It’s fine,” he says. He leans over and pulls the chair out for her. “Be my guest, no one sits here.”

“Thanks,” she sighs. She hurries into the chair and starts pulling out her stuff, arranging them in neat lines on her desk. He watches her out of the corner of her eye and looks up to where he’s used to seeing her; three rows from the front. The prime real estate. Close enough to see the board closely and appear engaged but far back enough to chat and pass notes and zone out without having to worry about getting called on. He can’t help but wonder what made her trade that for this cosy little spot near the back with him, but he does have his suspicions.

Said suspicions grow stronger when the door opens and Heather Chandler steps in, blonde curls tightly pulled back and pushed up slightly, held by, of course, that red scrunchie. Her eyes survey the room as she enters and they find MacNamara immediately, narrowing as they do so. JD finds himself sitting up, his hand moving automatically to slide his bookmark in. Chandler’s gaze makes something flicker inside him; it’s either annoyance, anxiousness or a combination of both. Whatever it is, it makes his chest tighten as Chandler stalks over to MacNamara’s desk.

“Heather?” she says bluntly, tapping a nail on her new desk. “Heather? I’ve been trying to call you all weekend. What’s your damage?” MacNamara rolls one hand into a fist and squeezes tightly with the other, small noises coming out of her mouth, much to Chandler’s impatience. “Is this about that shit from the Halloween party?” MacNamara nods quickly, still looking right ahead of her. Chandler rolls her eyes, letting out a long, deliberate sigh. “Look Heather, you fell. It happens. Now are you coming or what?”

MacNamara shrinks back into the chair. Chandler towers over her, her shadow half covering Mac’s timid face. MacNamara grips the chair tightly as her mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. A goldfish trying to stand up to a shark. Half-words and tiny grunts come out of her mouth, getting louder and faster and closer together, hopefully building up to something. JD finds himself on her side, anxiously waiting for her to send the red shark flying out of the ocean.

“I don’t want to sit with Kurt,” she manages to get out, her voice shaking. That simple sentence leaves her breathless. JD wants to look at Chandler to see her next move, but he finds he can’t leave MacNamara.

“What?” Chandler sighs. “Come on. That was three days ago. Get over it already.” MacNamara flinches like Chandler just slapped her, her little pink lips forming a pout and beginning to tremble. JD clenches his fist under the table, panic flaring up as well as anger. Deep breath time.

“No,” she answers. Even though she sounds one degree away from whining, she also sounds powerful. Maybe that’s just because she’s calling out the head bitch. “The way you acted sucked.”

“Oh so you’re going to sit here?” she asks, her perfectly plucked eyebrows raising. She nods her blonde head in JD’s direction. “Next to psycho trench coat kid?”

“Hey, Heather. Buzz off.” Her dark eyes jump from MacNamara and land sharply on JD. Of course he’s seen that type of look before; he may not have moved around as much as he used to, but he’s been around enough to see more queen bees than he would care to see in his lifetime, but something’s different about Chandler. Something about the winged eyeliner framing her burning eyes. Or maybe it’s because she made it personal. Either way, he shrugs casually, flicking over the page in his book like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Don’t you have some puppies to torture somewhere?” The corner of his mouth quirks up into a shit eating grin Veronica would smack him for. But he reasons that he’s doing it for the greater good, so can she really judge? “Cruella.”

Chandler winds herself so tightly that JD wonders if she’ll physically snap. That her spine will break in half like a twig and she’ll just pop into a cloud made up of blonde hair, red blazer and black eyeliner. Her hands tighten on her hips, her manicured nails turning into claws. She could walk over there and rip his head from his shoulders and he wouldn’t be surprised; she exudes that superhuman strength she saves only for when someone dares to cross her. Maybe that’s exactly what she’d like to do. Instead she turns back to MacNamara, her shoulders dropping by a mere fraction, softness creeping into her marble face.

“Him or us, Heather,” she whispers. “Remember who your friends are.”

She turns on her heel and walks away, batting a smile at Ram, and sits up on her table, leaning backwards on her hands, throwing her head back and exposing her long, white neck, and the expensive necklace around it.

MacNamara seems like a deflated balloon once Chandler leaves, her slim shoulders hunched over and her blonde hair falling over them without the usual yellow bow holding it in some form of order. She turns towards JD; she doesn’t meet his eyes and her attempts at what he guesses is meant to be a grateful smile fall short. She pulls at her sleeve, trying to get it over her hand.

“Thanks,” she says in a low voice. “For standing up for me.”

“No problem,” he replies nonchalantly, going back to his book. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her heart shaped mouth turning up and she manages to smile, really smile this time, dimples and white teeth and all. And somehow, he wants to smile back. Smile back at Heather MacNamara, the girl who slut shamed his girlfriend. Sherwood Ohio gets stranger every day.

“Hey,” she whispers, handing out a packet to him, attempting to cover it with her hand so as not to attract the vultures of their American history class. “Want a Starburst?” It doesn’t take much of an internal debate. He picks out a purple one, fondly remembering the conversation he had had with Veronica a week or so ago about her sugar habits and closed the book as class started.

      *****

Sometimes Veronica really does miss the privacy of her and JD’s garden. She’s aware that she needs to stop calling it that, but she’s also aware that she can’t lie to herself and that eating lunch outside in a semi-abandoned courtyard speaks to the old hopeless romantic in her. Even when it’s cold and raining like today and the stone table she’s sitting on it poking and prickling at her legs and ass. It gave her an excuse to wear her boyfriend’s coat and cuddle until she was more than warmed up enough. And most importantly, she didn’t feel like she was wading into oncoming traffic when she was out in that garden. Sometimes crossing the cafeteria feels like having to run from one end of the highway to the other with as little collisions as possible.

“So you’ll never guess what happened in US history today,” JD says as he slides into the seat next to her. She had been sitting alone at her table for the past five minutes with Martha up in the lunch line and JD having to run down three flights of stairs just to get here. He’s still panting a little as he takes his lunch out of his bag. Some tomato pasta concoction in a plastic box.

“You were taught European history?” she asks dryly, twirling a carrot stick between her fingers.

“That would have been interesting, but no,” he chuckles before turning towards her, joined hands resting between them on the table and one leg crossed over the other. Veronica abandons her carrot stick, his posture, his serious face and the fire in her eyes drawing her into whatever story he’s about to drop on her. “Little Miss MacNamara ditched her usual seat to sit at the back.”

“She did what?” Veronica asks.

“There’s more,” he adds before she can even comment on how unusual that is; Heather hasn’t sat at the back since middle school where assigned seating placed her there. She leans on the table, almost bouncing with anticipation and intrigue. JD looks around for a minute and leans closer, as though anyone would care to listen to what they’re saying. “Chandler came over to her and started… well… being Chandler. And MacNamara said she didn’t want to sit with Ram.”

“Can you blame her?” she asks shuddering at the memory of Heather alone and crying on the street, a dark bruise standing out against her pale skin and scarlet blood on her chin.

“She’s hidden the bruise pretty well,” he says, seeming to read her mind. “Yeah, no one can blame her. So now she slums it at the back of US history with me.” He shrugs casually, twirling his pasta around his fork. “As study buddies go she isn’t bad.” Veronica nods and looks over at the Heathers’ table, noticing a distinct lack of yellow amongst the green and red. It’s odd, seeing them without MacNamara. Just Heather and Heather, as opposed to Heather, Heather and Heather. Much as she sees Chandler as the Almighty, there is something missing without the third one there. MacNamara was the diamond that sat in their crown, the shiny stone in the middle that drew people to them. Without her, all that’s left is Chandler power and Duke’s cunning and they’re a little more dull now. Or maybe that’s just her.

“You think she’ll ever go back to them?” she asks.

“You’d know better than me,” he replies. “But you didn’t.”

Apparently she didn’t need to ask, because as when Martha approaches their table, Heather Mac is behind her, both them smiling nervously.

“Hey guys,” Martha greets. “It’s okay if Heather sits with us, right?”

“Um, yeah of course,” Veronica says. Martha gives her a grateful smile before her anxious eyes move to JD, who gestures to the two seats opposite them.

“It’s a free cafeteria. Be our guests.”

“Thanks,” Heather says. They both sit down quickly, their hands moving quickly to start their lunches. Veronica is kind of amazed; these girls are like chalk and cheese, they exist in different worlds, different rungs of the social ladder, both in and out of school, one bright blonde where the other is a dark brunette, one a breakable china doll the other a teddy bear, one tight blazers and short skirts, one oversized sweaters and unmatching pants. But just now, they somehow managed to look identical; eyes looking down, fingers tapping the lunch tray, shoulders hunched over.

“So how was your movie night?” Martha asks them.

“It was, it was good,” Veronica says, hoping her voice isn’t as high as it sounds in her head. She tries to keep her eyes off Heather but looks at her just long enough to see her visibly tense, her fist curling tightly on her try. Even when JD’s fingers brush against hers under the table, she can’t relax. “I mean, we just watched a bunch of horror movies.”

“Oh, cool.” Martha glances around, picking up on the unpleasantness that had settled around the table. Veronica’s heart aches for her and the guilt she sees on her best friend’s face (Martha has always worn her heart on her sleeve, but even if she didn’t; Veronica can read her better than any book). Even when she tries to hide with her a smile, she can still see it. “I’d never be able to handle those types of movies. They’re way too gross.”

“If it makes you feel better; neither could JD.” It’s a mean way to try to diffuse the tension and she knows it; that’s why she slips her fingers in through his in an attempt to apologise. When he squeezes gently, she realises she didn’t need to. Also she wasn’t wrong.

“I could!” he squeaks indignantly.

“Was that before or after Nightmare On Elm Street scared you so bad you nearly knocked over the candy bowl?”

“Well Nightmare On Elm Street is scary!” Heather points out. “I watched it last year and had to sleep in the guest bedroom so Freddie wouldn’t find me! With the light on!” Laughter erupts from the table; even as Heather tries to pout she breaks into a grin and a fit of giggles. With the dimples in her cheeks and wide grin, Veronica struggles to see the broken, scared girl she saw on Friday night.

“We did carve a mean pumpkin though,” JD says.

“You carved it,” she reminds him.  “Though my parents did make me throw him out when he started to stink.”

“Our child?” he says, putting a hand over his heart in mock agony. It’s a pity that he doesn’t take drama, she thinks. He was born for the stage. “They made you throw out our own child?”

“I’m devastated,” she deadpans. Martha is giggling along with them but Heather has her nose scrunched up in silent confusion, even though she still tries to laugh too. “He lived a short but beautiful life in my living room. He spent it watching movies.”

“Though we sadly never got around to watching The Princess Bride,” JD adds with a look at Martha. “Sorry Dunnstock.” Martha tries to act casual, to shrug it off with an ‘it’s all right’ but Veronica can see the tiny smidge of disappointment in her eyes. The Princess Bride is her religion after all.

“Oh, is that movie any good?” Heather asks. “I always thought it looked good, but I never got around to watching it.”

Martha’s mouth hangs open in shock, her eyebrows shooting up her pale forehead. Heather crunches on a celery stick innocently, unaware that she may as well have asked Martha is the sky blue or is the Earth round.

“It’s amazing,” she tells her, excitement creeping into and lifting up her voice. “It’s the best movie ever.”

“Yeah, I saw the commercial for it on TV, it looked really cool.” Her smile dips and for a moment, she looks wistfully over in the direction of her old table. “I wanted to go see it, but… Stuff just didn’t work out, you know?” Veronica bites her lip as Heather shakes her head, her perfect curls bouncing.

“The video store has loads of copies,” Martha adds, sensing Heather’s sadness. Veronica fights a smile. Martha’s always been the empathic one. It must come with the big heart. “Me and Veronica are on a first name basis with them.”

“How did that happen?” Heather asks, an impressed smile on her face and her eyes wide.

“At least a thousand movie nights between the ages of six and sixteen,” Veronica answers. She reaches out to Martha for a high five, which she reciprocates with a broad grin.

“Wow,” Heather says, rubbing the back of her neck. “I don’t know if I could watch it though. I mean just-my dad took my TV out of my room until I get my grades back up.”

“Wait-does that kind of bribe work?” JD asks. “Because I’ve been begging Claire-my foster mom-to let me have a TV for my room and she said only if I get straight As.” He shrugs, twirling his pasta around his fork. “I think she knows I won’t get them. And she thinks that if I have a TV in my room I’ll never come downstairs.”

“That’s what my dad said,” Heathers sighs. Veronica almost sees the tension flowing out of her in a steady stream and wonders how much she’s kept all this inside herself. “But I never turn it on when I’m studying!”

“Well now that we’re back buddies, your history grades are sure to improve,” he tells her with a sly wink. “If nothing else, they can’t see you cheating back there.” Veronica turns and glares at him, smacking his shoulder lightly, but with just enough force to let him know she doesn’t approve. He holds his hands up. “I don’t cheat. Cross my heart.” She narrows her eyes. “And I would never encourage it. Of course. But it is quieter back there. Trust me, it’s a whole lot easier to focus.”

“History is okay,” she says. “But he said if I don’t get at least a B in math I won’t get my TV back.”

The phrase ‘poor little rich girl’ does cross Veronica’s mind, but she holds it back.

“And I hate math. I’ll never get any of it,” she finishes, throwing her head back in exasperation. Veronica sympathises, of course. Math is mostly a foreign language to her. Actually no, she’s good at foreign languages; her A in French is a testament to that.

“Hey, if you’re having trouble with math, maybe I could help you?” Martha offers.  Heather blinks at her in surprise, a beat of silence between them. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to-”

“No!” Heather says quickly. “I mean yes. I mean, that would be great. Thank you so much!”

“It’s nothing,” Martha says. Her cheeks turn a very faint pink, probably only visible to someone as in tune with her as Veronica herself is.

The blissful, laughter filled reprieve of lunch starts coming to an end, which means it soon becomes a matter of getting to their respective classes before the ringing of the bell. JD and Veronica thankfully have study hall together, so they deposit their bags in a quiet little nook before going to see their friends off. Martha hurries off to chemistry with a resigned sigh and a “see you guys later” while Heather runs off to gym, her yellow back swinging from her shoulder and her little heels clicking off the linoleum floor. As she watches her go, Veronica hopes she’s imagining the way her shoulders fall the further the gets away from them.

JD tugs on her hand and tickles the inside of her palm with his thumb. She smirks and pulls his arm around her waist, leaning into his chest for just a second before twirling around and leading him to the study hall.

“She’ll be okay,” he tells her, bumping his shoulder against hers. It gets a smile and a little chuckle out of her, mainly because he actually has to bend down a little to reach her. “I can look out for her in history class.”

“You’re sweet,” she replies.

“You know, it’s not your job to help everyone.” She turns and frowns at him. He simply shrugs, as though he had just handed her a ten dollar bill and not seemingly tapped into her subconscious thoughts.

“I don’t…” she begins, the words feeling uncomfortable in her mouth as her brain looks for some half-hearted rebuttal.

“Hey.” They stop walking so he can pull her into a small corner, him settled against the wall and pushing her hair away from her face, tracing her chin with his thumb. He smiles softly, taking his time and choosing everything he’s about to say carefully. “Look, you care so much about people. And it’s beautiful, Ronnie. But it’s also not your job to make the world better.” He rubs under her eye with his thumb, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t push yourself too hard.” There’s something unsaid there, something lingering behind his lips he won’t say.

Still, she breaks into a smile and nuzzles into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. There’s a warm, light feeling in her chest that Heather Chandler would probably call stupid and she’s just going to call lovely.

“You’re sweet,” she says and means it. “Really sweet.” Still with her arms wrapped around him, they turn and start making their way to study hall. Their bags may have saved their seats but people can move them to different seats-and people have, and they will almost definitely do it again.

But despite her anxiousness to get to study hall before their prime seats are stolen, something in the corner of her eye makes her slow down; a bright pink flyer on the wall, of all things. Her patent shoes dragging against the floor as it grabs her attention. The words ‘bake sale’ are written in white bubble letters across it, with a little cartoon muffin apparently dancing beside it.

“What’s up?” JD asks. She takes a moment to internally kick herself; for a second she’d forgotten JD was even there.

“Nothing,” she lies. “Just got distracted.”

“What, by this?” This time she lets the groan escape her lips as he steps over to look at it himself, their joined hands meaning he takes her with him. Up close, she sees that the poster is asking for donations for some bake sale to raise money for a preschool. She knows the preschool; in fact it’s the one she and almost everyone in the entirety of Westerberg High went to. Maybe it’s a subconscious longing for her better, more innocent years. Maybe she just likes the idea of baked goods. “It’s a good cause.”

“It’s my preschool,” she tells him, waving a hand at it. “That’s what got me.”

“Are you going to bake something?”

“I don’t know,” she says, which is a half-lie. Half lie, because she doesn’t know if she will, but maybe she’d like to. More than maybe.

“I think you should,” he says as they resume their walk to study hall, their pace picking up when they pass an old teacher with a disapproving glare.

“Really?” she asks.

“Yeah. Like I said it’s a good cause. Plus I assume it means I would get some too.”

“You only get some if you help make some,” she jokes.

“Well…”

“You want to?” she asks, looking at him sideways. There’s a secret smile he’s trying and failing to fight. “Maybe this Saturday? My parents are going out that day, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. And maybe we can make a few extra for ourselves…”

“Baking for a good cause,” he says as they slip into study hall just as the bell rings.  “What better way to spend a Saturday?”

They scurry to their claimed seats, which thankfully haven’t been moved, though Ram Sweeney does seem to be eyeing them up with intensity. In her mind, Veronica gives him the finger as she sits down. She opens her French textbook and prepares to start attacking the past perfect tense, spending the next ten minutes going through it, quickly at first and then faltering a little, then a little more, and then a little less. As she works, a little note lands on her desk, handwriting completely familiar written on the back of it. When she looks up, JD is nonchalantly highlighting some page about the Civil War, only just barely looking at the note.

 _One question; brownies, cupcakes or cookies?_ Beside each option is a little tick box and a drawing of said option. Coloured in with glitter pen of all the things. JD still doesn’t look at her, but there’s a proud glint in his dark eyes.

She checks brownies and hands it back to him, this time slipping it under the table and depositing it on his lap with a large amount of grace and an unbelievable amount of luck, her own addition written along the bottom in a mirror image of his own writing.

_If you’re going to pass notes in class, be subtle about it._

It’s only next period when she goes off to French that she finds his response, tucked into the pocket of her blazer.

_Like this?_

And she’s just glad he’s not around to see the mile-wide grin on her red face.

                                                                                                 ***** 

Not for the first time, Martha wishes she had offered to tutor Heather at her own house. Or the library. That was probably the best option. That way, she wouldn’t have to try to cope with the girl who is rich enough to buy and sell her dad’s job walking around her subpar house, and Martha wouldn’t have to be standing on Heather’s startlingly white porch and feel dwarfed by her own house stretching and towering over her.

The red brick house seems to extend on forever, reaching up to the sky and wide enough to fit three of Martha’s house in it. When she presses the doorbell, it’s a sharp shrill that lasts for longer than any other one she’s encountered. She wipes her shoes on the black welcome mat at the door, hoping to rub away any unseen dirt before-

“Hi!” Too late. The door opens up, revealing Heather in, as usual, a short yellow skirt and although she seems to have ditched the blazer in favour of a white and yellow sweater that hangs a little past her fingertips, and her hair tied in a messy braid. Heather herself look impossibly small inside her house. Even with the grace and strength with which she carries herself almost all the time, the house dominates over her, making her look slightly out of place. Or maybe Martha was just projecting herself onto her. “Come on in.”

The hall inside is black and white marble, making it look like a chessboard and pale blue walls with a spiralling staircase leading upstairs. But rather than going up there, Heather leads her the other way, into the kitchen. She moves differently than she does at school, Martha notices. There’s far less bravado in her own house, maybe because she knows she doesn’t need to scare anyone here. It’s only Martha here and she’s already plenty scared of her. She’s faster too, her steps quick compared to the leisurely stroll through the halls she and her friends (former friends, she corrects herself) practically own.

“You want anything?” she asks, opening up the fridge.

“Oh, I’m okay, thanks,” Martha says.

“You sure?” she asks. She turns around and holds up a can of Diet Coke. “No alcohol, I promise.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Heather hands her the can and holds onto one for herself, kicking the door shut. “Is it okay if we study down here? My dad thinks it’s easier for me to focus when I’m not in my room.”

“Yeah that’s fine.” Heather smile and Martha follows her over to the kitchen table-round with polished dark wood. Heather’s math notes are already covering half of it.

“I tried to get started a little before you got here,” she confesses, pushing them all into one haphazard pile.

“Okay.” She sits down, pulling her own textbook and notes, significantly more organised than Heather’s, out of her back. She feels too big for the dainty chair, especially as Heather folds one leg underneath herself beside her. Maybe the library was the better option. “So… Where do you want to start?”

“Oh, I wrote it down,” she says, searching through her notes. It takes a while, but she pulls a page out triumphantly. “Uh… limits. That’s what I need the most help with. I just don’t get any of it.”

“Okay.” Martha opens up her textbook to that chapter and Heather copies. Martha hopes the doodles in the margins were done by the book’s previous owner, otherwise Heather might find herself in hot water with the Math department. “Okay, so see for this first question? What did you get for that?”

“Um… I got that the limit is six.” Martha tries her hardest not to cringe, especially when she sees Heather’s crestfallen expression. But she’s off. She’s way off. “That wasn’t right, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t,” she says gently. “But that’s okay, we can work on it. How did you start it?”

They start working through the problems together, Heather’s face getting more scrunched up in confusion by the minute despite her nodding and insisting that she gets it. Martha delicately goes back to the beginning, searching in her brain for another way to explain it. She retrospectively wonders why on Earth she offered to tutor her. She might be good at math, but she’s clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff. Actually talking to people. If socialising was a class, she’d get an F. Lower than an F, probably.

She tries one last approach. The pained look on Heather’s face hurts her more than her own feelings of insecurity. The wide eyes and wringing hands and lack of breath are far too familiar to her, even if they look alien on Heather. She hesitates for a moment, remembering who she’s with and how far beneath her she is (and frankly, what this girl has done to her), but it all disappears in an instant as she looks at Heather, how she starts to pick at her perfect nails and pulls on her blonde curls. Instinct takes over and she reaches out, at first to take her hand, but settles for her shoulder instead, thinking better of it.

“Hey,” she says softly. Heather looks away from the book and up to her, chewing her lip. “It’s okay. I know this stuff’s hard. Not everyone gets it the first time around.”

“You did.”

“Yeah,” she admits. “But we all have things we’re good at. I’m good at math, but I suck at so much other stuff. JD’s good at English. Veronica’s good at French. And you’re an amazing cheerleader. So it’s okay if you don’t get math after the first go.” Heather is, probably for the first time since kindergarten, speechless. “So… one more try?”

“Yeah. One more try.”

Martha ignores the flutter in her chest and gets back to work. She explains the logic behind it again, remembering to break down the more complex parts, demonstrating one of the questions for her. Heather tries to tackle the second question on her own, her knuckles almost white as she grips her pen. Martha wants to look away, but she keeps her eyes on Heather and her furrowed brow, her mouth rolled into the thin line. The other girl’s shoulders are so tense she half-worries she might shatter like a porcelain doll.

Martha’s never seen her like this. She’s only ever seen her with her head up and her shoulders back, sparkling from head to toe with the accessories she picks out every morning and those little heels of hers that are so bright they’re close to golden. She’s seen her lounging in the lunch hall and laughing, seen her on the top of the cheerleading pyramid, her chest out, her smile. The epitome of happiness and confidence; everything Martha wishes she could be but isn’t. She had just started assuming that Heather was an endless stream of sunlight. Albeit a rather mean, judgemental and aloof sunlight-one that could burn and blind a person just as much as it could shine on them. But now she’s beside her, almost all the light stripped away, hidden behind a dark cloud of her father’s making.

Maybe there’s more to this girl than she thought.

“Okay. I did it.” She’s panting as though she’s just ran a marathon and she slides the notebook over to Martha. Unlike her, Heather turns her head away, her hand clenching and unclenching. Although she can’t see her, Martha can imagine her closing her eyes tightly. Her anxiety is infectious and creeps into Martha as she looks over the work, as though there’s a live wire connecting the two of them. But that feeling starts to fade when Martha compares Heather’s answer with the one at the back of the book.

“Heather?”

“Yeah.” Her voice is already laced with disappointment.

“You got it right.”

“I did what?” Heather whips around, her mouth open in awe.

“You got the answer right.” She pushes the book over to her so she can see for herself. “And all the working out too.” Heather’s mouth hangs open, she splutters out some kind of laugh and looks up at Martha, her brown eyes shining. Just like her anxiety, her happiness is also infectious. “Why don’t we try the rest of the questions?”

She gets most of them right. Some minor mistakes, some big ones, but she gets enough of them right for it to be considered a pass. Her eyes glitter when Martha tells her and she bounces up and down on the seat. Heather asks if she’s sure, that there’s no mistakes or she didn’t get mixed up. When Martha assures her she didn’t, it’s like she won the lottery.

“I can do math!” she exclaims. “I can do math. Thank you so much, Martha!”

Heather throws her arms around her, burying her in a tight embrace. Martha is nearly knocked off the chair, but she steadies them just in time. Heather pulls away from her, her cheeks pink, her eyes uncharacteristically shy.

“Sorry,” she whispers, her mouth half-hidden by her hands. “I got too excited.”

“It’s okay.” The hug left her breathless and she’s not entirely sure that it’s all down to the suddenness of it. “We’ve still got some time left. Why don’t we try the next chapter? Area under curves?”

“Sure… that’d be great.” Martha turns to the right chapter and Heather flips her notebook over, pages flapping and turning until she finds her own notes. Heather is like a little puppy when she listens to her explaining it; her eyes wide, bouncing up and down on the chair. She’s tempted to say she’s adorable, which is a word she never pictured herself using for the Heather MacNamara that she’d grown up with. But this isn’t the Heather MacNamara that she’s grown up with.

                                                                                        *****

“Do you think one bag of plain flour is enough?” Veronica asks, turning to JD. He’s leaning on the handle of their shopping cart, the aisles busy enough to early Saturday morning. “What did the recipe say?”

“85 grams.” His voice is strained; he’s leaning so hard on the trolley that his breath is cut off and his feet are just about off the ground.

“Okay, the one is more than enough.” She drops one bag into the cart next to the tin of cocoa powder and a carton of eggs since Veronica isn’t sure how many she a) has at home and b) is allowed to use. “What else do we need?”

“The golden caster sugar,” JD answers, pushing the cart with a little too much enthusiasm. They probably would have been better off getting a basket given how little they actually have to get, but JD is having more fun than he should zooming around on the cart and honestly, so is she. They scour the aisles looking for everything else; butter, cocoa powder and three different varieties of chocolate. Just before they head to the cashier, JD takes a little packet off the shelf and tosses it in. A packet of white chocolate stars.

“What?” he asks when she smirks at him. “We could eat them ourselves if you don’t want to decorate. Just thought they’d be pretty.” She stretches up on her tiptoes and lightly kisses his cheek.

“Nerd,” she whispers, laughing.

They run into the kitchen almost as soon as Veronica opens her front door, JD unpacking their paper bags from the store while Veronica rummages around her kitchen, pulling out long forgotten bowls and wooden spoons and scales, not see since her Girl Scout days.

“Okay, what does the first instruction say?” she asks, tying back her hair and rolling up her sleeves. JD hums while drumming the sides of his hands into her back. She wonders if it’s a sneaky attempt at giving her a massage because if it is, it’s working.

“Cut butter into cubes. Put butter and chocolate into bowl and melt over simmering water.” She takes charge of that while JD sets about greasing baking trays, weighing out ingredients and preheating Veronica’s oven. After the chocolate’s cooled, she starts sifting together flour and cocoa powder while JD cracks the eggs and weighs out sugar, his movements the most precise and careful she’s ever seen with him.

“What?” he says when he notices her looking at him.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just… you’re looking very focussed on those eggs.”

“Well there’s a trick to getting them right.”

“Is there?” she laughs, raising an eyebrow. “And where exactly did you learn that trick?”

“Hey, I can cook!” he reminds her. She nods, her smile dipping against her will as she remembers a scene in another kitchen, years ago, when she was wearing a green dress and jean jacket and he stood on top of a stool at his stove to make her pasta. Something heavy settles in her stomach at the memory and her skin prickles. That was one of the last days she saw him when they were kids, and it was the day she learned about his dad. She hadn’t learned much in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to make her twelve year old self worried. Even now, with the seemingly content home life he was with Claire, she wonders if all that’s gone and forgotten now. She heavily doubts it. “Hey, Ronnie, still with me?”

“Yeah,” she says, shaking her head and putting on a smile. “Sorry. Miles away.”

“One of my old foster placements…. The last one I had before I came here, actually,” he goes on. “They started sending me to this cooking class on the weekends. I don’t know, something about working through my issues in the medium of baking.” He chuckles, cracking the last egg and letting it flow into the bowl.

“Did it work?” she asks tentatively. She always feels like she’s walking blindfolded where his past is concerned, unable to see where the line is.

“I don’t know,” he admits, shrugging. “I think it did. I know I liked it. I know I was good at it. I even made one of the littler kids a birthday cake at one point.” He pauses for a minute, an all too innocent smile creeping across his face. “Unrelated, but your birthday’s in January, right?” She laughs, caressing the back of his head gently.

“Yes. And I while I like all cakes, I am partial to red velvet.”

She kisses his cheek while he laughs and goes to get the electric hand mixer out of the cupboard. The blades are still shining under the kitchen lights, the paintwork so perfect it looks like it just came out of the store.

“Hey,” she says. “Want to guess how long we’ve had this for?”

“Uh… two years? Three?” He raises an eyebrow, his face scrunched in confusion. She can’t blame him; it was a kind of ridiculous question.

“Ten,” she replies, setting it on the counter.

“Damn,” he says. “Your parents really take care of their stuff.”

“Not really,” she admits. “We used it once because I wanted to make cupcakes once when I was seven. And then another time when my grandma came over and mom insisted on making a meringue. And then she was put away in the cupboard and never used again until now.” She plugs it into the wall, the still spotless white chord piling up in a corner on the table. She sticks it into the combination of eggs, flour and sugar and turns it on-

Only for the mixture to explode on them; white puffs of flour jumping up from the bowl and attacking them. Her shaking fingers flick the switch off, her mouth hanging open in shock as she tries to catch her breath. Beside her, JD’s black top now has what she can only describe as a small white explosion across it, and he’s biting his lip to try (and fail) to stop himself from giggling.

“Maybe turn the power down a little?” he suggests in between laughs.

“Yeah.” Her voice is much higher than she would have expected. She looks at the power dial, and when she sees it turned up to “max”, she bursts into laughter herself. “Maybe just a little.” She takes a look down at herself and sees a light dusting of flour across her shirt.

“You look like you were mugged by a snow fairy,” JD comments, leaning on the table.

“Oh you want to go there?” she jokes. “You look like a snowman punched you in the stomach.”

“Oh, Ronnie,” he says, putting his hand to his chest. “Don’t be cold about it.”

Veronica has to lean on the table. She rolls her lips into a thin line, her sides shaking with laughter, her hands clenching into fists. She feels physical pain in her chest and it’s not just from her trying her hardest not to laugh.

“That was funny.”

“That was painful,” she corrects him with a grin. “Come on, these brownies aren’t going to mix themselves.”

“Should I run for cover?”

With the power far down, she puts the mixer into the bowl and flicks it on; it turns quickly but gently, folding the mixture together and turning it from dark to light brown as the eggs combine with the sugar. She gives JD a smug grin.

When everything’s mixed the right way, they pour it into the baking tin. Veronica holds the tin out while JD expertly (and by that she means comically awkwardly) holds the bowl with one hand while using the rubber spatula to push it all in.

“What if I dropped this?” she asks.

“Please don’t.”

“What if you dropped that?”

“Pretty please don’t.” His dark head is bent over the baking tray as the final little trails of uncooked brownie mixture land in the tray. He grins excitedly at her as the tin fills and hands her the spatula. “Want to do the honours?” She smiles and carries it back to the table before smoothing it out with the side of the spatula. She takes a step back to admire her (their) handiwork. Even as uncooked batter, they do look gorgeous, three different types of chocolate swirling around in their little edible paradise.

“Get the oven?” she asks as she lifts it up. Heat rushes up to her face and blows her hair back as she puts it on the middle shelf before straightening up and closing the door and glancing at the clock above her oven. “Okay, we have half an hour before these have to come out of the oven.” She turns to the table, groaning at the dirty bowls and spoons and mixer blades that now beg to be washed. Funny how the recipe books don’t mention how long it’ll take to clear up everything. “We need to wash all that.”

“We can get it done fast,” he tells her, going over to the table and inspecting the big bowl. “Like, this one, come here.” She steps up to him but keeps her guard up. There’s a tremble in his voice like a ten year old planning a prank. “There’s not a lot in here. Just enough to do this-” She feels his finger swipe down her nose, and then she feels the sickly, cool texture of leftover brownie mixture. He stumbles back and laughs, the tip of his finger dark brown as proof of his little crime. Red handed, brown fingered, it’s all the same. “Sorry, but I felt I had to.”

“Very cute,” she admits, stepping closer until there’s hardly a distance between them at all. Her hand slips into the bowl and she makes sure to cover the side of her finger. He could learn a lot from her. “Almost as cute as this.” She jabs her own finger against his cheek, which soon bares a dark brown, clumpy mark. With the chocolate on his cheek and his face scrunched up, one eye open, he looks cuter than she’s seen before. When he grins, the chocolate sticks to his dimple.

“Okay, let’s be adults about this-”

“Boring.”

“Oh?” His hand moves behind her and her stomach tingles. “Your call.” Another smear of chocolate across her cheekbone, just underneath her eye.

“Adorable.” She retaliates with a line along his jaw.

Some attacks and more lines of brownie later, they run out and have to face the actual responsibility of cleaning up after themselves. The kitchen fills with the warm, mouth watering smell of brownies baking as she washes and JD dries, dancing along to some song he’s singing, momentarily using the spoon as an improv microphone.

When the half an hour is up, Veronica squats before the oven, nerves building up in her chest as she slips oven mitts on and JD opens the door. A rush of hit hair meets her again, making her stray hair blow back, and she pulls the tray out and puts it on top of the oven.

They look… not awful. Good. She’d probably go as far as to say great. Not perfect, a little uneven at the side and rising up and cracked in the centre, but they’re inviting; soft looking, springing back when she touches the top and warm, promising a soft centre.

“Not a bad job,” he says, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her head. “Told you we could do it.” She hums in agreement, running her hand along his arm and grabbing his hand.

A part of her in the deepest corner of her mind wonders if this is what her future might look like, standing with his arms wrapped around her in a different kitchen-one that they could call theirs-but she doesn’t let herself dwell on it. Not when there’s brownies in front of her and his arms around her.

“Come on,” she says, spinning out of his grasp and tugging on his hand to lead him to the counter.

Once they’re cooled, Veronica opens up the packet of chocolate stars he bought. She tastes one, letting it melt on her tongue, before taking a significant handful and handing the rest to JD. She tries to sprinkle them over fairly, although one corner does get quite a big cluster compared to the rest of her half. JD puts them on in semi-neat lines instead. It doesn’t quite look like a perfect reflection of the night sky, but they get the idea across.

“Moment of truth,” she sighs as she takes the knife out of the drawer. She cuts into it easily, revealing the soft sponge beneath, the dark brown laced with streaks of white from the melted with chocolate. She cuts it into sixteen, more or less equal, squares, setting fourteen side and saving two, warmth melting into her palms before JD lifts his.

“Cheers?” he offers, toasting her with his brownie. She taps hers against his.

“To our creation,” she says. “It’s either a masterpiece or a monstrosity.”

When she bites into it, she decides it’s the former. Well, maybe not quite, but it’s a delicate sponge, two different types of chocolate; a rich dark and creamy white (plus the stars) and a slightly crunchy top. It’s sweet and it’s chocolatey and it tastes good. That’s a masterpiece for her.

And for JD, if the exaggerated noises of appreciation are anything to go by.

“Oh come on,” she says after this third “mmm”. “They aren’t that great.”

“I think they are,” he says. “We should do this thing more often. I forgot how much fun it is.”

“I’ll take those to the bake sale tomorrow,” she tells him, nodding at the box on the counter. He grabs her by the waist and pulls her close, and she wraps her arms around him. “We did good.”

“We did,” he replies and they share a short and sweet kiss, still with chocolate streaks on their faces and flour on their chests.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexa, play What Baking Can Do. Fun fact-this was partially inspired by the line "we'll bake brownies" in Seventeen and partially by my housemate making brownies.  
> I hope y'all like the Martha/MacNamara thing-they're so much fun to write and I'd kill for them just as much as I'd kill for jdronica.  
> Anyways, leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed it <3

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked, please leave comments to feed my hungry ego and validate my poor life choices.


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